


I'll Lay Your Soul to Waste

by jujuberry136



Series: Time Has Come 'Verse [3]
Category: Criminal Minds, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-17
Updated: 2011-06-17
Packaged: 2017-10-20 12:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujuberry136/pseuds/jujuberry136
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People are dying in New Hampshire, but Emily Prentiss thinks it’s a regular case until she spots Sam Winchester skulking near one of her interviews. When she calls his stupid-ass brother to yell at him for not giving her a heads up that they’re in town, Dean tells her Sam’s been dead for months. Dean’s out of the suburbs and on the road immediately because while he may have worked with the BAU before, there’s no way they’ll be able to deal with this – he’s not sure he is either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Lay Your Soul to Waste

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for the [Sncross_bigbang](http://sncross-bigbang.livejournal.com/). It is the third in the [Time Has Come 'Verse](http://archiveofourown.org/series/7241), following [The Time Has Come to be Gone](http://archiveofourown.org/works/176880) and [When You Are Done ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/177150). This story can stand on its own, but you’ll get more out of it if you read those first.
> 
> Thanks to [Ambrosia4all](http://ambrosia4all.livejournal.com/) for betaing this and dealing with ridiculous emails at all times of the day. And a BIG BIG BIG thank you to [Miki-moo](http://miki-moo.livejournal.com/19066.html) for her beautiful art. See all of it at her [ART MASTERPOST ](http://miki-moo.livejournal.com/19066.html)!
> 
>  **Timeline Notes:** This fic is a weird creature. It contains some spoilers up to 6.17 of SPN and 6.19 for CM, but then goes AU for both even though it plays with events that occurred in both after (and before) those episodes. Note for CM fans: the episode “Lauren” did NOT happen the way it happened on screen, especially the ending.

~*~*~*~*~

 _“Far from being the basis of the good society, the family, with its narrow privacy and tawdry secrets, is the source of all our discontents.”_  


\- Sir Edmund Leach

~*~*~*~*~

When she saw the flash of black clothing out of the corner of her eye, her first thought was that Doyle had found her. And in New Hampshire of all places.

Her heart leapt into her throat and she swallowed harshly. Doyle was dead. She’d identified his body in the morgue once she’d gotten out of surgery and switched his toe tags herself to ensure cremation. After Wisconsin she wasn’t betting that a man who’d broken out of a North Korean prison in life would accept the fact that she was out of his reach after his death. The scar on her stomach was enough of a reminder of Doyle, she didn’t need his spirit hanging around. Of course, she could always get Morgan to shoot him again, but she’d always been a proactive kind of girl – better to keep these types of situations from starting in the first place.

Her brain finally caught up with her eyes and her heart suddenly felt too heavy. She wasn’t sure this was any better, because if Sam Winchester was in town the likelihood that she’d be able to walk away intact wasn’t good. Possession, kidnapping followed by murder by ghost – what would it be this time?

Goddamn it. His stupid brother had promised, _promised_ , that he’d keep her in the loop if their cases ever crossed again. It was one thing to run into a supernatural case accidentally, but allowing her team to go in uninformed?

Not going to fly.

Her phone was to her ear before she had a chance to realize she’d dialed Dean’s number. When he answered with a thick and slow “hello”, clearly not quite awake, she couldn’t stand it. Emily had never been one to hold her tongue at friends’ mistakes and she wasn’t going to start now.

“What the hell, Winchester!” she spat turning away from the Hetton house. “We had a deal! You’re supposed to let us know if we’re going to walk into any of your crap! What is going on here?”

“Prentiss?”

“How many other FBI agents do you have this kind of deal with?” she asked, all too aware her voice was rising and making a conscious effort to keep it to a low roar. “Now, what the hell is going on?”

Dean cleared his throat on the other end of the line. “Going on where?”

“Portsmouth!”

“Ohio?”

Prentiss looked at her phone in disbelief, wondering if he was always this stupid in the morning or if she was just exceptionally lucky. When they’d met last, she’d chalked his slow thinking up to the obvious concussion he’d been sporting, but maybe she had been too generous.

“New Hampshire,” she finally ground out. “Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where we’ve been for the last three days chasing down leads and you’ve apparently been too busy to clue us in. So help me god, if you’ve been holding out on me I will get Garcia to plaster your face all over the Internet warning people you’re a walking den of STDs and you will never get laid again, DO YOU HEAR ME?”

Dean was silent on the other line. “Prentiss, I’m in Indiana. I have no idea what you’re talking about here.”

“Then what the hell is your brother doing here?”

Dean inhaled sharply on the other end. “You saw Sam?”

“He’s kind of hard to miss,” she replied. “I thought you two worked together – wait, what’s going on in Indiana?”

“Did you talk to Sam?” Dean asked urgently.

“If I had talked to him, would I be screaming at you?” she asked, her anger redirecting to his stupid behemoth of a brother. “I should probably get his cell number if you’re going to take a while to get here. Hopefully we can compare notes.”

“Prentiss,” Dean said darkly. “You need to stay away from Sam. If you see him, run. Don’t talk to him, don’t argue with him, don’t do anything. Just run as fast and as far as you can.”

A chill ran down her spine that had nothing to do with the puddle she’d stepped in. “What’s going on here?”

She could hear clothes rustling in the background and for a long moment she was afraid Dean wasn’t going to answer; that he’d just hang up and she’d be walking into another situation blind.

“Prentiss – Sam died four months ago. Whatever you saw, that wasn’t Sam.”

~*~*~*~*~

He was tearing the tarp off the Impala before he realized he was breaking his promise to Sam. Sam’s last request, but Dean hadn’t even paused when Prentiss mentioned something funky going on in New Hampshire. Dean couldn’t even do normal right. All Sam asked of him before he threw himself into the Pit... But some punkass bitch demon was wearing his brother, and Dean couldn’t let that happen. And if it meant disappointing Sam once more, well, Dean had never been the good brother in their family.

The car started perfectly, just as he’d known she would. Even with Dean’s recent foray into responsibility and normal living and shit, he’d known his baby wouldn’t let herself go. She was too awesome for that. He checked her oil before checking the trunk. Sam probably wouldn’t have approved of the arsenal still living there, but Dean had been in the game too long to ever be comfortable without weapons nearby. He had been proud of himself for only taking two guns and his favorite knife into the house, though Lisa hadn’t been nearly as cool with it when she found them tucked into his boots one early morning.

Lisa.

Crap.

She’d been awesome, more awesome than he deserved really. Dean knew himself well enough to know if some ex-girlfriend of his had shown up on his front porch after years of no contact, offering the fold-out in the study and giving her a good meal and a couple of beers wouldn’t be the first thing he’d do. Dean had barely been able to speak the first week and somehow Lisa knew when to send Ben in with a question on the best Zeppelin track of all time and when to ply him with a beer to sit with her on the swing during a summer thunderstorm.

And he’d been two minutes from taking off without even a thank you.

Dean well and truly sucked at any thing approaching a normal life.

In the darkest moments of the summer, he sometimes wondered if this was Sam’s revenge for not finding a way to save him.

~*~*~*~*~

The sorry sight of a full-grown man in full pout met Lisa when she pulled the Volvo into the driveway. When she saw him like this, Lisa sometimes wondered how he and Ben managed to share all the same expressions and mannerisms without sharing a single drop of blood. He looked the same as Ben had when Lisa told him that most bands don’t produce vinyl anymore: shocked, puzzled, and slightly pissed off that the world wasn’t acting the way it should.

She ignored him as she brought the groceries into the house and grabbed two beers from the fridge. “So what’s wrong?” she asked, handing him a beer and twisting the cap off the second for herself.

“Prentiss saw Sam. In New Hampshire.”

“Sam? As in your dead brother Sam?”

Dean nodded sullenly.

“So why are you here?”

Dean’s head whipped around to stare at her incredulously. She laughed softly, he looked like a moron with his mouth hanging open like that and his eyes bugged out. After she gleefully informed him how stupid his face looked (and waited for the inevitable “your face is stupid” response), she couldn’t help but ask, “What’s with the surprise?”

“So you want me to leave?”

Lisa smiled softly. “Dean, do you want to be here?”

Dean just looked blank and slightly lost. He opened his mouth several times, but an answer didn’t seem to be forthcoming.

She gripped his hand fiercely. “Ben and I? Have loved having you here. Ok, maybe him more than me when you come home from the grocery store with Wonder Bread, bologna, and chips. But seriously, we’re fine on our own. And I don’t want you to stay if you’re just here because you feel like you have to be.”

Their conversation dried up, neither knowing exactly what to say. She could wait him out and did. The silence between the two of them grew, letting in Mrs. Wilson’s complaints on her husband’s lawn mower skills from down the street. She stopped staring at Dean, waiting for him to say something – anything- to watch Tommy and Melissa Parkey run by each holding super soakers, and see Shawn Danitz’s steadfast attempt to weed his wife’s garden. The last gasps of summer were always Lisa’s favorite time of year, but it was obvious it never crossed Dean’s mind to look out and enjoy the neighborhood. Where she saw signs of community, he saw danger.

He couldn’t help it; she knew that. But at times she couldn’t help but resent the fact that she’d never seen him as lively as the time a raccoon had found its way into the garage and he’d chased it around with a baseball bat and a cardboard box for twenty minutes. And she’d known then that it would only be a matter of time before something called him back. Hell, he certainly spent enough time moping by his cell, waiting for a call that never seemed to come.

But sometimes, when he and Ben spent hours with their heads together over an engine or plotted to convince her that pie was really a balanced meal, she’d almost let herself hope. They’d had one glorious weekend together years ago and her kid adored him; how could anyone not wonder what things would be like ten years down the road?

But Lisa’d always been too hard-assed for her own good and when those thoughts managed to worm their way through her defenses, she just reminded herself of the way Dean reflexively looked for exits every time they entered the bookstore or movie theater.

“God this is such a chick flick moment,” he said finally, ruining the moment completely.

“God you’re an ass,” she replied.

He offered her a hand off the porch swing and grabbed her tightly. “Thanks,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

He grabbed the duffle from underneath the swing and walked away, pausing once to wave and give her a crooked grin. She watched the Impala peel away, classic rock blasting from every open window, and nodded once, firmly, before going back into the kitchen. He’d be fine. And if he wasn’t, she sic Ben’s softball team on ‘em.

Twenty-five pre-pubescent boys without a clear sense of basic hygiene and a propensity to ask horribly awkward questions while being fundamentally unable to keep a civil tongue in their mouth? Most terrible thing on Earth.

~*~*~*~*~

Reid had been told he often lacked a basic understanding of conventional social interaction, but it was fairly obvious that something beyond the case was bothering Prentiss. She had been snappy, unusually content to do paperwork and didn’t bother trying to foist it off on him so she could do field work, and had been checking her phone obsessively. If he hadn’t caught her rubbing her tattoo several times he would have thought she was worried about the fallout from lying to the team about her past involvement with Doyle again.

So he didn’t understand why she looked so gobsmacked when he’d pulled her aside and asked her if she’d heard from the Winchesters yet.

“You knew this was supernatural?” she hissed, pulling him into a supply closet roughly.

“Of course not.” Reid took off his glasses, examined them critically and began to clean them with the edge of his shirt. “But the last time you rubbed your tattoo this much was after Wisconsin, so it’s not that big of a leap.”

“What’s the rule about inter-team profiling?”

“According to you and Morgan last week, perfectly acceptable when trying to figure out what your coworker was up to over the weekend,” Reid replied.

“Ok fine, we shouldn’t have bugged you about that, but this is totally different.”

“Five hours of constant interrogation is not ‘bugging’, it’s borderline harassment.” Reid put his glasses back on. “Emily, I’m just concerned. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” she finally said, holding a hand up at his sputtered replies. “Seriously Reid, I don’t know.”

“What do you know?”

“That it’s probably bad enough we need to get the team together,” she replied, ushering him out of the dark closet quickly.

That didn’t bode well, Reid thought darkly, shrugging off confused looks from the officers at his exit. One of these days he’s going to figure out how Morgan manages to look cool in these situations; failing that, maybe he can just invent a perception filter and everyone will ignore him whenever he wants.

~*~*~*~*~

“What’s going on in Portsmouth,” a rough voice demanded as soon as Bobby answered the second phone from the left.

“Dean?” Bobby replied curiously. “Thought you were trying to drown yourself in doilies and dry wall.”

“Bobby…”

“Don’t you _Bobby_ me boy,” he answered. He took a seat at the kitchen table and smoothed out the yellow paper he’d created for the occasion. “You think you can go all this time without a ‘Hey, I’m alive’ and not get your ass chewed out. What the hell Dean?”

Dean sighed, same as he always did when he thought Bobby was being ridiculous. _Too bad kid,_ Bobby thought viciously. _This is what happens when you stop answering your phone after your brother and your dead half-brother become meat suits to Lucifer and Michael, try to bring about the end of days in a graveyard in Kansas, then one brother stupidly sacrifices himself by jumping back into Pit and pulling the other along for the ride._

Bobby was a bit hazy on the ending, he’d been dead at the time (apparently), but that kind of shit doesn’t earn you a “get out of ass-chewing for running away like a wimp” card. It’d been bad enough when his father and brother did it, Bobby had thought Dean knew better by now.

“Look, you can yell at me all you want later, but I need you to tell me what’s going on in Portsmouth, New Hampshire that’s obvious enough to attract the FBI’s attention but is probably caused by demons,” Dean said, cutting into Bobby’s thoughts.

Goddamnit. The kid is good. Bobby took one last look at the “105 Reasons to Yell at Dean” list he’d spent the better part of the last few weeks creating and turned it over to write on the blank back. “I’ll call when I have more information.”

Dean hadn’t hung up yet.

“There anything else you want to tell me?” Bobby asked curiously. Winchester manners being what they were, he hadn’t been expecting Dean to bother with small talk now that he had what he wanted.

“Prentiss called,” Dean finally says, the silence stretching out between them like so many miles on the highway. “She said she saw Sam.”

Bobby’s blood ran cold. “I’ll call from the road.”

“What? No,” Dean sputtered. “I just wanted to know if you knew anything.”

“It’s Sam, you idjit,” Bobby said flatly. “What’s Castiel say?”

The line remained silent.

“Dean…” Bobby warned. He could hear Dean grinding his teeth the same way he used to when Dean and Sam had thought it was a great idea to tape a rocket to one of the junkers out back to “see what happens”.

“I haven’t heard from Cas in months,” Dean finally replied, sullen same as he always was when he’d been caught being an idiot.

“Lucifer is possibly walking the Earth again and you’re not calling our best source of information because you’re mad your boyfriend hasn’t called?”

Bobby tried hard not to laugh too loudly at Dean’s indignant protests before hanging up. He had calls to make, books to check, a car to load, and a demon to send back to hell.

~*~*~*~*~

“Probably a good thing we don’t have Seaver on this case,” Rossi said taking a moment to digest Dean’s warning about his brother. “She’d flip.”

“I’m flipping,” Morgan replied angrily. “What exactly is going on?”

Prentiss paced by the windows in the corner of the office. “I told you guys everything I know. I saw Sam Winchester, I called Dean to figure out if our case had any supernatural elements, he told me his brother had died and I should stay away. What more do you want me to say Morgan?"

“I want you to make sense,” Morgan said, pounding his fist on the conference table.

“Maybe Sam’s a zombie,” Reid suggested, looking way too intrigued for Dave’s comfort.

“If Dean hadn’t told me, I would have never known something was wrong,” Prentiss replied immediately. “Plus he didn’t do the walk.”

“Could be a fast zombie,” Reid replied, clearly unwilling to give up so soon.

“Would you shut up about the zombies already Reid!” Morgan shouts. “This isn’t funny.”

“I know it’s not funny,” Reid replied waspishly. “Our friend apparently died and came back from the dead and is now evil. What do you want me to do?”

“Something a hell of a lot better than crack zombie jokes!”

“Everyone needs to calm down.” Hotch’s voice was a bucket of cold water over the room. “We have five people dead, we can’t afford to go off half-cocked. We are going to do our jobs.”

“But what about Sam Winchester,” Reid protested.

“We don’t know the situation well enough to do anything,” Dave said slowly, as uncomfortable with the word admission as everyone else in the room. “We won’t do anyone any good if we lose focus now.”

“But what if the victims died from something--” Morgan paused, clearly uncomfortable with the word he’s about to utter, “supernatural?”

“Do you know why Sam Winchester would be back from the dead?” Hotch asked, implacable.

No one in the room is willing to meet his eyes. “We’d be going in blind and frankly our luck’s never been good with the Winchesters.”

Prentiss rubbed her chest with her thumb at the reminder. Dave wondered if a tattoo was going to be enough to protect her this time, it hadn’t last time. The past year hadn’t been an easy one for them – Winchester encounters aside. Losing JJ, almost losing Prentiss – Dave didn’t know if he was ready for the sheer terror and chaos tattoo the Winchesters always seemed to create. Morgan and Reid exchanged long looks across the table at the reminder and Dave couldn’t help be puzzled at Morgan’s unconscious back-rub and Reid’s quick flick of his wrists. Dave knew there was a story there, but for the life of him couldn’t figure it out.

“I’m not saying don’t keep in touch with Dean,” Hotch continued. “We’d be stupid to overlook any information he can give us. But there’s no way he’s getting here in the next day, so let’s work with what we know and keep an eye out for Sam Winchester.”

Dave would never admit it, but he almost jumped out of his skin when the knock at the door sounded. Detective Irving poked his head in cautiously. “Everything all right in here?”

“Just discussing some new theories,” Hotch said blandly. “Did something happen?”

“Got a call, might be another victim,” Irving replied darkly. “I’m sending Petroski and Smith out.”

“Morgan, Prentiss, go with them,” Hotch orders. “Dave, I’d like you and Reid to go the hospital again, see if there’s been any change in Max Hetton’s status and check in with the pathologist again to see if the latest blood tests have come in.”

~*~*~*~*~

The last notes of “Highway to Hell” died on the stereo and the first notes of “Girls Got Rhythm” sounded before Dean was ready. It was a game his father had created in those early days after the fire, measuring time by song: “We’ll find a hotel after the next two songs”, “Look for a place to eat when ‘Ring of Fire’ ends”, “Sam, you can’t ask another question until this song is over, I mean it this time.” He’d gotten out of the habit recently - Lisa’s house had some sort of clock on every wall - but this game was as much a part of him as sitting in the Impala tearing through mile after mile of highway. It was as familiar and comforting as having his Colt resting in the small of his back and a knife wedged in his boot.

The tape turned over in the deck and the opening power chords of “Walk All Over You” reverberated through the cab and out the window. Crap, he’d gotten distracted. Ok, next song, because this? This required head banging and one arm out the window keeping time on the door.

This was stupid; Cas probably didn’t even have the cell anymore. It’s not like he’d used it…

Holy crap, Bobby was right. Dean was acting like Sam used to when his latest crush hadn’t returned his phone calls. Before the main chorus could play, he grabbed his cell and pushed three.

Cas’ stupid voicemail greeted him, not even a ring. Just “I don’t understand, why do you want me to say my name?” and the sound of Cas frantically pushing buttons in an attempt to make the “strange voice” on his cell phone make sense. Add that to the “reasons to kick Castiel’s ass” list he’d been working on while forced to watch Ben’s little league games; reasons one through ten were still mostly focused on Cas being a douche and dicking off to Heaven, but not changing his voicemail definitely made the list at number twenty.

“Cas?” Dean cleared his throat. “Listen, something funky is going on Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Prentiss… you remember her from Wisconsin last year? She said she saw Sam. Got any clue what’s going on? You’ve… uh, got my cell.”

Dean ended the call and threw this cell into the passenger seat. Crap, he hadn’t sounded that awkward since calling Jenny Ushkowitz for his first booty call when he was fifteen.

He was halfway through the Zeppelin mix-tape he’d made in sophomore year (man, Jenny had been awesome) and passing the exit for Akron before his phone rang.

“Yeah?”

“Where are you?” Cas sounded exactly the same; gruff voice, sounded vaguely irritated at the world at large, direct to the point of rude.

“Hello to you too,” Dean replied sarcastically. “I’m in the car, on 271 outside Akron.”

“271 what?”

This is what Dean got for being friendly with supernatural beings with no appreciation of pop culture or humanity in general.

“271, the highway,” he ground out. “Interstate 271, I just passed the exit for the Medina regional airport.”

“Look left,” Cas commanded.

On his left ahead a couple hundred yards was a familiar sight, trench coat blowing out behind him from the cars whizzing by giving the impression of wings. Dean allowed himself a small giggle at the irony, if only all the jerks honking knew whom they were ignoring. The figure started waving his arms up and down as Dean approached. He looked like a deranged tax collector as he tried to keep the phone to his ear and wave with both arms simultaneously.

“I am the one signaling you.” Cas said unnecessarily.

“I noticed,” Dean replied, pulling the Impala across two lanes of traffic and onto the shoulder. He opened the passenger door. “Get in.”

~*~*~*~*~

Spencer tried to contain his initial reaction to the pathology lab in front of him, but everything was just so interesting. He hadn’t seen some of these reference samples since grad school - couldn’t Rossi just give him a few minutes before grabbing his shirt collar and dragging him into the discussion on what substance the unsub was using to poison the town?

At Rossi’s glare, Spencer reluctantly rejoined the conversation. Apparently he’d missed something important while his fingers itched to start experimenting at the Grosslab benchtop pathology workstation.

“So why don’t you think it’s poison anymore?” Rossi asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. “When we arrived yesterday we were told that you thought it was poison and we’ve been operating accordingly.”

Dr. Gablehouser glared right back. “I don’t know what idiot told you that. As I told Detective Irving last night, initial indications came back from Max Hetton reading some sort of infection, likely bacterial same as the others from the day before.”

“But why is he still alive when six others are dead? That doesn’t make any sense,” Spencer wondered out loud, twisting his hands as if he was physically manipulating the problem and he only needed to turn in the right way for everything to make sense. Six people dead, one in critical condition. Max Hetton was the outlier, not the norm. What made him different?

“Doctor Gablehouser,” he asked, possible questions and answers running through his head, each discarded as unlikely or impossible after a second’s consideration. He twisted his fingers again, as if the problem was Rubix cube and he only had to twist for everything to become clear. “When you ran the tox screen for Hetton, did you test for any medication?”

The balding man grabbed the chart in the middle of his messy desk and scanned it quickly. “We were mostly looking for toxins, neurotoxins, and biological weapons - though the damn CDC is taking their sweet time getting back to us - didn’t really see the point in looking for aspirin and antibiotics.”

“But he’s the outlier,” Spencer replied, aware his voice was rising but unable to contain his excitement. “Something about Hetton is different that’s allowed him to survive long enough to get to a hospital. Maybe it was something he was already taking!”

“Or maybe he doesn’t have the same thing the others had,” Rossi said, playing devil’s advocate. “According to their families, the others all had hallucinations before they collapsed and died. Hetton didn’t as far as we know and his physical symptoms are different - none of the others had boils.”

“Well, the boils may be from a staph infection he developed here; it’s fairly common unfortunately” Dr. Gablehouser replied. He made a notation in the chart and nodded politely at both agents. “We’ll retest for common medications Dr. Reid, but I think your colleague may be on to something.”

Spencer frowned, but didn’t bother challenging the pathologist. He twisted his fingers again, but the problem remained an unsolved Rubix cube, colors intertwined and stubbornly refusing to fall into place. He turned the problem over and over, trying to find the right side to start from, only to realize they were sitting in the car. “Aren’t we going to interview Hetton?”

“Hotch wants us back at the station,” Rossi replied.

“We have time though,” Spencer argued. “And we only have the wife’s account from Prentiss’ interview earlier today.”

Rossi started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. “We’re needed more back at the station. According to the hospital updates, Hetton should be coming out of sedation later today – we’ll come back when we have more information from the latest victim. Might help us understand how Hetton survived.”

Spencer opened his mouth to argue further, but one look at Rossi clearly indicated he wasn’t changing his mind. Instead he mentally started reviewing case notes – Prentiss’ interview with the victim’s wife indicated no enemies, but Prentiss also noted she was likely in shock. Mrs. Hetton had apparently spent the interview cleaning the bloodstains from the dining room carpet and mentioned no plans of visiting her husband. Hetton himself had no known enemies, lived more than three miles from the previous victim and had only the barest of interactions with all the other victims.

There was something, Spencer thought stubbornly, something they were missing that would make everything clearer.

~*~*~*~*~

The White household was a mess, emotionally and physically. Emily circled the den once again, hoping this time she’d find something beyond Randy White’s college lacrosse trophies and framed newspaper clippings. Someone had never moved on from past glories, she thought cynically.

White had been found facedown, but after the paramedics failed to revive him he lay face up staring blankly at the ceiling, dried blood running down his cheeks in a sad approximation of tears. Emily knew if she looked at his hands, now carefully positioned by his sides, she’d find them covered in blood, fingernails left in the remains of his torn face.

She really wished the paramedics had turned him back over. It would be a kindness.

Mrs. White couldn’t stop crying; Emily could hear her broken sobs all the way from the kitchen. Didn’t sound like Morgan was having any luck getting a coherent statement. She took one last look at the broken man in front of her, his mouth contorted in a rictus of pain and confusion, and left Petroski and Smith to their documentation.

Nellie White was too young to be a widow; she didn’t even have a wrinkle, Emily noted ruefully.

“He just sounded so scared,” she whimpered.

Morgan nodded. “You’re doing real good Nellie, real good. What else can you tell us?”

“It was just so fast. He got home from practice and checked his email.” She laughed brokenly. “I hate when he does that, I’ve asked him a thousand times to just shower, but he always has some excuse.”

Emily hated these early moments, when the death and the horror hadn’t quite sunk in. The families forget, they speak in present tense… and then it hits all over again and again and again.

“He just gets caught up on the stupid computer, you know? And he’ll spend hours in here just sitting in his own filth.” Nellie looked up from the latest tissue she’d been shredding, the pile in front of her a testament to how long it’d taken her to get her composure back.

Even after everything she’s seen, Emily’s not sure she’d recover nearly as quickly. Nellie may be the typical blonde trophy wife physically, but there was a spine of steel buried below.

 _Deep_ below, she amended as Nellie started sobbing into Morgan’s shoulder, again from the look of his shirt.

“Nellie,” she asked softly. “When did you first realize something was wrong?”

“When I was in the kitchen making dinner,” she said. She pointed to the pots on the range. “Homemade soup, one of his favorites. And suddenly this horrible scream comes from the den.”

She breathed deeply. “And when I get in there, he’s just clawing at his face and screaming. He’s not even trying to say anything, he just screams and screams. He’s stumbling around the room and his hands just keep clawing and clawing. And before the ambulance even arrives, he’s on the ground and he’s not moving.”

Nellie looks up at them brokenly. “I…didn’t even try to help him. I couldn’t even go in the room. Do you think it’s my fault he died? If I’d done something, maybe he’d be alive right now?”

“Ma’am, there’s nothing you could have done.” Morgan took both her hands in his. “But we need you to be strong right now, can you do that?”

Nellie nodded uncertainly.

“Just before he died, you mentioned that Randy was ‘stumbling around the room’,” Emily prompted. “Can you be more specific? Was he disoriented? Was he trying to get out of the room?”

“It almost looked like he was trying to get away from something,” Nellie said after a moment of thought. “Like there was something in the room only he could see and it was horrible. And he just wanted to get away.”

She and Morgan exchanged a discomfited look. How did all the victims share the same delusion?

“Nellie, this is uncomfortable, but we have to know. Did you touch the body in any way?”

She looks at Emily confused. “I already told you, I didn’t do anything. Oh my god, I’m such a stupid cow! I just let my husband die in front of me without doing anything!”

“I know this is hard,” Morgan said softly, “But did Randy have any enemies? Anyone who might have wanted to hurt him?”

Nellie patted at her running mascara ineffectively and sniffed a few times. “No, nothing I can think of. He’s never gotten in trouble with the law, not even a parking ticket! Why would anyone want to hurt him?”

Before she could collapse back into sobs, Morgan thanked her for her time and recommended she stay with a friend or family member for the night.

Emily waited until they were out of earshot of the local cops and the victim’s wife before confessing, “This is freaking me out.”

“Seven victims now. Six dead and one hanging on by a thread in the hospital is bad enough, but the shared delusions are not normal.”

Emily knew it was stupid, but she lowered her voice conspiratorially anyway. “You think it has anything to do with the Winchesters?”

“People dropping like flies in creepy and horrible ways?” Morgan asked rhetorically. “Sounds like their M.O.”

~*~*~*~*~

“Speak now or forever hold your peace,” Penelope joked, twirling her favorite pink sparkly pen thoughtfully.

“Well you wouldn’t want that,” Morgan drawled, deep and sexy as always.

Penelope shuddered appreciatively; the man was good. “The world would mourn. What do you want?”

“Prentiss and I are at White’s house. Wife says no enemies, but can you look anyways?”

“Can do my fabulous one,” she replied, already typing Randy White’s name into police databases, the social security administration’s database, and Google – just for kicks. “Ok, Randy White married Eleanor Tollhouse six months ago, nothing hinky about that. Their financials aren’t great though – wow.”

“What Garcia?”

“Your man Randy is burning through money like he’s found the lost episodes of Doctor Who on Bluray.”

“What?”

“Not important,” she replied quickly. _Note to self – do not make nerd jokes unless Prentiss or Reid is there to appreciate her witticism (note to self two – find lost episodes. She’s a genius, shouldn’t take too long, right?)._ Derek Morgan may be sexiness personified, but he lacked a proper knowledge of important cultural events. Luckily she has Kevin for that.

Morgan cleared his throat and she realized she hadn’t said anything in a long moment. Whoops, time to get back to work. “Their bank account shows Randy’s been spending something like ten grand a month and they’ve got absolutely nothing saved. It’s a bit weird considering they don’t make nearly the amount of cash money to support that kind of habit.”

“Gambler?” Morgan suggested after updating Prentiss.

Penelope checked the White’s financial statements again. “The money’s being routed to a website with a really fake billing address. I mean come on, who doesn’t see Wholesome Bunnies, Inc. and think ‘man, I bet that is a family friendly and totally real company’?”

“You have a suspicious mind mama.”

“And for good reason,” she replied, having finally traced the company name to the website. And in under five minutes too - man she is awesome. And her hair looks amazing. This day rocks. Ok, now to go through the White’s home computer to get all the saved passwords, browsing history, and match everything up. She loved lazy computer owners – Randy apparently hadn’t bothered to clear his browser history or his saved passwords in quite a while.

“Oh gross,” she muttered once she accessed the website. Day suckage resumed then. She was going to need serious cuddle time with Kevin to recover from this latest discovery of human depravity.

“What?”

“So Wholesome Bunnies Inc. is the name used for billing purposes by a really gross website. Apparently, you contact this group if you really enjoy having sex with young women, taping the experience, and watching it again and again. And based on how much time and money White has spent on the site, he really enjoys it.”

Morgan swallowed harshly on the other end. “You sure it’s not just girls that look young?”

“She looks twelve,” Penelope whispered. “And she’s crying.”

“Go through the background of the others, let me know if you find anything we might have missed before,” Morgan commanded before he hung up the phone.

Penelope mentally added, “And DDOS the shit out of the disgusting website” to his order. She uploaded the story and the plan of attack to a few of her favorite haunts before digging into the financials and police records of the others.

~*~*~*~*~

Cas sat awkwardly in the passenger seat, his hands folded and placed in his lap, studiously examining the dash of the Impala as if he’d never seen it before.

“I can’t believe you kept the cell phone,” Dean said after a few miles had passed and the angel hadn’t said a word.

Castiel blinked solemnly in response. “I have found it has uses.”

“Whatever, dude,” Dean replied. “Who ya gunna call, the Ghostfacers?”

He slapped his leg, but Castiel didn’t so much as pretend to smile.

God Dean needed more friends, especially friends with an appreciation for 80s pop culture references and puns. When he said as much to Castiel, the angel frowned darkly.

“Are we friends Dean?”

“Dude, we stopped the Apocalypse together, I’m pretty sure that means we’re best friends for life.”

Castiel didn’t look appeased; in fact, he looked even pissier than he normally did. “My study of human friendship has led me to believe there are certain niceties friends exchange. Ones that you failed to exchange today.”

Dean managed to stay in his lane, but it was a close thing. “Really? This is what you want when I tell you my Lucifer might have escaped from Hell wearing Sam?”

Castiel looked a second away from opening the glove compartment and organizing Dean’s box of fake IDs.

“Fine,” Dean ground out. “Hi Castiel, how are you doing?”

“I have been leading the ongoing civil war in Heaven that was wrought by my association with you. There are traditionalists who are still wed to bringing about the Apocalypse as initially intended. Preventing them from this goal has taken all of my time and energy, leaving me little time for the petty goings on of humanity.”

Dean groaned. Of course this was his life.

“And Lucifer does not walk the Earth. It is Sam.”

Dean jumped across four lanes of traffic and managed to park the car before launching himself at Castiel, a primal sound of rage erupting as he punched Castiel in the face. He was winding up for a second shot, when Castiel opened the passenger door and dragged him across the seat and out of the car, holding him against the chassis by his throat.

“Do not presume to press your luck,” he growled.

“Fuck you,” Dean wheezed. “Sam…” He would have said more, but airflow was becoming an issue. After a few moments of weakly struggling, Castiel finally released him. Dean massaged his throat warily, all the while glaring.

“We would have felt Lucifer walking the Earth, but he remains in the cage. However, Sam has walked the Earth for the past four months, yes.”

Castiel looked warily at Dean after the revelation, as if wondering when he’d have to restrain Dean again, but all the rage had gone. Dean just felt blank, numb, elated, confused. It was as if the Earth had shifted beneath his feet and Dean was suddenly a second behind everyone else. He could see Castiel’s lips moving, but the sound was garbled and slow. Like in the Godzilla movies.

He could hear Castiel, but it didn’t make sense. His brother… was alive?

Sam wasn’t in Hell, screaming from the torture as Dean had done for so many, many years (he never let himself think about how many years it’d been for Sam without even the option Dean had to break to get the torture to end), wasn’t stuck in a cage with two pissed off angels – one of whom been kicked out of heaven for being a sick fuck and the other head of the creep brigade – and Adam (poor kid, he didn’t deserve the Winchester legacy), hell he… clearly whatever Prentiss saw wasn’t Sam.

Sam wouldn’t let him think he was in Hell. He wouldn’t. When Castiel first raised Dean, he looked for Sam before he’d even finished coughing up dirt, and when that first failed he grabbed Bobby and didn’t stop ‘till he found the kid. Because you don’t let family think you’re being tortured for all eternity in hell when you aren’t. You don’t let your brother wake up every morning feeling refreshed only to have the awful, soul-crushing truth that you failed and your brother is paying the price of that failure in blood and, by now, sanity.

You just don’t. It’s not right.

So something has hijacked his brother’s body and Dean knows how to deal with demons. In the far corner of the Impala he’s got a bag full of tools just for the occasion.

And he’s angry enough at the nerve of whatever it is that would dare wear his brother, after all his baby brother had given up, to happily use all the tricks he’d learned at Alistair’s hand.

~*~*~*~*~

They just wouldn’t give up, would they? All he wanted to do was talk to the living victim to figure out what those agents had missed, because there was no way Mr. Max Hetton had coincidentally come down with the exact some thing that had killed five, wait – now six other people in town. Those kinds of coincidences didn’t happen in his kind of work.

The skinny agent finally left the room and he was able to stop pretending to be visiting with the old woman rooming across from Hetton. After a full minute without a nurse or annoyingly persistent federal agent returning, he left the old woman mid-story. He thought it was mid-story; he hadn’t exactly been listening closely.

Hetton was pasty where he wasn’t covered in dark, ugly boils. He was sleeping lightly, moaning occasionally but unable to move too far due to the restraints. Perfect. It was as if they’d known he was coming and wanted to give him a present.

He hit Hetton in the arm as he dropped into the hard plastic chair by the side of the bed. His back twinged angrily, but he ignored it easily. Bodily pain wasn’t important, not now anyway.

He hit Hetton again when the man was slow to wake, making sure to hit one of the large groupings of boils on his right arm. That woke him up quickly enough.

“What the hell,” Hetton demanded angrily, groaning theatrically.

 _Wimp,_ he thought with a soft scoff. “You know what’s weird?” he started conversationally, as if he and Hetton had been chatting the whole time.

“Do I know what’s weird?” Hetton sputtered. “Who the hell are you? Why the hell did you hit my arm? I’ve been getting poked and prodded for three goddamn days after going through a psychotic episode and trying to gouge my eyes out with my fingertips and you want to know what’s weird? Go to hell.”

He smiled darkly. “Did that, wouldn’t recommend it. But seriously, do you know what’s weird?”

Hetton tried reaching for the call button, but it was slightly out of his range. He eyes widened when he realized he couldn’t call for security and took a deep breath.

He easily palmed Hetton’s face and pushed down slightly. “You can behave or we can do this the hard way. Doesn’t really matter to me. Now, you going to be good?”

Hetton nodded, clearly willing to agree to anything if only he could breathe easily again. When the hand was finally lift, Hetton breathed deeply several time. After a few moments he finally noticed the glare sent his way and his eyes widened.

Sam didn’t have time for this and leaned forward again, arm reaching forward.

Hetton shrunk back as far as possible into his pillow and quickly asked, “What’s weird?”

“Well, six people have died from the same thing you got,” Sam replied conversationally, “And yet you’re all alone. Your wife isn’t here. Isn’t that weird?”

Hetton paled even further.

This was going to be a… productive conversation.

~*~*~*~*~

Aaron wasn’t ashamed to admit he learned the skilful art of delegation from the best; David Rossi could – and had on multiple occasions – pawn off the worst of the legwork on the junior agents. If Seaver were here, Aaron would have no compunction about sending her to re-interview all the families with Morgan, Prentiss, or Reid to supervise. But she wasn’t and if he had to stay here and wait for another call, wait for another victim that just might give them the clue they need, well… it wouldn’t be pretty.

It was only logical to start from the beginning. Alexandra Collins was the first victim, single with no family in town. Detective Mendoza had spoken to her parents earlier, but beyond Collins’ parents’ disapproval of her move to New Hampshire from New Mexico, nothing in the case files had pinged Aaron’s radar as odd.

Dectective Irving’s interview with Collins’ best friend in town, Cady Stanton, however, had been pushed aside once the second victim showed up three days later. It was a long shot, but the best they had at the moment.

Stanton was in her mid-thirties, dark hair, and well groomed but something was just off. Her sweater was high quality, but he could see a dark stain standing out on the collar. Her hair had clearly once had highlights, but it appeared she hadn’t bothered in the last few months. It could be monetary issues, but there was something more.

“I’m sorry to be so abrupt, but I have to ask,” he said. “Did Alexandra have any enemies? Any problems in town? Anyone who might have wanted to harm her?”

Stanton grabbed a blanket from the couch and wrapped herself tightly.

Defensive position, he noted, something had hit a nerve.

“I thought they ruled Alexandra’s death accidental?” she asked, sniffing nervously.

“At the time they thought so, but since then there’ve been a number of similar cases, leading us to believe she might have been murdered.”

Stanton blinked nervously. “Alexandra was a really nice woman, I can’t think who’d want to hurt her.”

“How did the two of you meet?”

She froze. “We met at a bar downtown. Isn’t it silly, but I don’t even remember which one now?”

“What’d you talk about at the bar?”

“Which time?”

Aaron paused to consider his next question carefully. Stanton was working hard to present an image of a well-to-do, upper middle class woman, but it was fraying badly. The stain combined with the quality sweater implied recent money problems. The sniffing could be a cold, but taken with her shaking hands and inability to sit still implied otherwise. Medical problem?

But wait, the bar. No clear memory of the first time she met her best friend and the implication of repeated trips. Detox, he realized. An attempt at sobriety.

But who quits, apparently cold turkey, immediately after the death of a close friend?

He ignored Stanton’s question and asked another of his own. “Why did you quit drinking after Alexandra died?”

She looked at him resignedly. “Alexandra was a lot of things, but she was also a hell of an enabler. I lost my kid, my husband, hell, even the house because I couldn’t stop. Every time I tried AA, she’d ask me out so we could catch up.”

“And you’d catch up in a bar?”

“It was our place, you know?” Stanton explained weakly. “And she was my only friend left in town; Henry got them in the divorce too.”

~*~*~*~*~

Emily looked at the photos spread across her desk despairingly. Six dead victims and one possibly on the mend, no common races or ages, no common religious or political beliefs, just hallucinations, brutal facial lacerations, and death. Not even a common cause of death; the coroner’s reports listed everything from suffocation to massive simultaneous organ malfunction (and one confusing note referring to indications of organ liquidation).

The room was almost oppressive in its silence; Rossi reverting back to writing in his notebook in the corner, Morgan stalking between the victim timeline board (god, how had this all happened in a month?) and the so-far-useless geographical profile whiteboard, Hotch sitting absolutely still ever since he’d returned, head bowed deep in thought, and Reid ducking in and out of the room to check “just one more time” if the pathology report had been faxed to the station yet.

The phone ringing was the sweetest sound Emily had heard in days. She barely beat Morgan to the office phone and switched Garcia over to speaker.

“This case is officially getting weird,” she said, not bothering with the niceties.

“The shared hallucinations and a possible dead guy walking weren’t enough clues?” Emily couldn’t help snarking. Hotch glared, but he was clearly thinking along the same lines so she didn’t let it bother her.

“What’d you find,” Hotch asked brusquely.

“So you asked me to dig deeper into the victims’ backgrounds to see if there were any similarities that might have been missed the first time around. And we’re still at bupkis on that front. So please stop doubting the power of my awesome, ok? Repeating work is boring.”

“Garcia,” Hotch warned.

Emily could hear Garcia’s answering smirk through the phone.

“Right. Anyway, I started thinking about the problem sideways, because laterally wasn’t working out so well. So I asked, what if the similarities are something that wouldn’t readily be obviously similar?”

“My brain hurts,” Morgan whispered playfully. Emily shushed him, but threw him a sympathetic grin. Penelope’s logic just plain hurt sometimes.

“So I started looking deeper, but that didn’t turn up too much either. Hetton and his wife are having problems trying to have a kid – poor women miscarried a couple months ago. White had the creepy pedophile thing going for him. Victim number three, Melissa Needham, her husband Dan has been in and out of the E.R. a bunch in the last couple years, yikes! Last time for a broken cheekbone, poor guy. Apparently he fell off a ladder doing some yard work, which appears to be the same explanation for the broken rib he was treated for two years ago as well.”

“Abusive wife?” Rossi speculated.

“Little too late to ask now,” Reid replied.

“I’m not done!” Garcia protested. “I work and I work, and you just chatter all over me like I don’t even matter.”

Like children, Rossi and Reid fell silent, shamed, and if she didn’t fear the wrath of Garcia, Emily would laugh.

“Ok, here’s where the weird part comes in. Victim number four, Dr. Tabitha Gravesend, treated Dan Needham. Every time he came into the E.R. apparently.”

“Any notes?” Morgan asked.

“Nothing,” Garcia replied. “With these kinds of repeated injuries, you’d think she would have at least given him a pamphlet or something. But apparently she took his excuse at face value – all five times she treated him over the last three years.”

~*~*~*~*~

“It’s the goddamn plague,” Bobby’s tinny voice shrieked when Dean finally picked up his cell.

For all of Dean’s anger, and it’s closer to rage right about now, he has no idea what Bobby’s talking about. He sat back in the drivers seat heavily, Castiel primly entering the passenger seat as if he’s stepped out for a bit of fresh air. “Wait, what?”

“New Hampshire, you idjit. Case you asked me for help on after not speaking to me for four months while living it up in suburbia? Ringing any bells or has the brain damage finally kicked in?”

Before Dean could protest further, Bobby continued. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say Pestilence had come back.”

“No, we killed him last year,” Dean confirmed, still glaring at Castiel. The angel was still doing his whole “I’m a badass angel of the lord who would never get kicked out of a whorehouse for being a lameass so don’t even pretend to talk to me that way” routine. Not everyone would be able to interpret such a nuanced look, but Dean and Castiel had a profound bond.

Or so Dean had thought until the fucker failed to inform him his brother was walking the Earth sans Lucifer. And now he was furious again, but Bobby interrupted what was going to be a truly epic rant. Dean made a mental note to remember the phrase “emotionally retarded ass-monkey” and reluctantly turned his attention back to the case.

Story of his life.

“Well, something is taking a page from Pestilence and killing people in a mighty Biblical way if you know what I’m saying.”

“Hold on, I’ll ask Castiel—“

“Castiel?” Bobby snorted. “The two of you fight over who gets to have the pretty, pretty princess crown?”

“No, I know how much that tiara means to you Bobby,” Dean replied. “I’d never try to take it from you… He knew Sam was back.”

“Well shit.”

Dean loved Bobby more than anything at that moment.

“He sure it’s Sam?”

“Says it’s not Lucifer at least,” Dean replied.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not some random demon taking a joy ride.”

“He says it’s Sam.”

Bobby was silent on the other end. “Don’t know what to tell you, except to strap on your big boy pants and ask your bestie what’s going down in New Hampshire.”

“Hold on,” Dean covered the speaker with his hand. “Cas,” he ground out, “Do you know what else could cause Biblical plagues to be showing up in New Hampshire?”

“What do you mean?”

Dean uncovered his hand, “He wants to know what kind of Biblical shit’s going down?”

“All the victims report hallucinations, try to gauge out their eyes, and generally die faster than a virgin in a horror movie.”

“That’s not exactly screaming Biblical, Bobby,” Dean pointed out.

“Ok, how about the fact that only survivor’s covered in boils, at least one of the victim’s organs liquefied so much that when they cut him open it apparently rained blood, and apparently at least two of the victims are first born sons.”

“Got me there,” Dean replied before summarizing for Castiel. “Uh, Bobby? I’ll call you back. Cas has his ‘imma smite a bitch’ face on.”

Dean managed to shove his phone into the pocket of his jeans before Cas lunged across the seat and suddenly they were gone.

~*~*~*~*~

Max grumbled when he finally opened his eyes and didn’t see his wife. Hell, right now he’d even take a neighbor. He’d known someone was standing at his bedside for a while now, but he’d held out hope Ginger had finally visited.

He should have known better; Ginger Brinker-Smith was not one to forgive easily, after the miscarriage and his confession, the continual silent treatment and limp that had lasted for two weeks were testament enough to that.

His visitor was standing over his bed, head cocked curiously as he examined Max. Was this guy a doctor? Why was he so interested in Max’s rash, he’d been told it was pretty common. Oh god, he had cancer.

The visitor was holding something reverently, a stick? _Ok_ , Max amended mentally, _not a doctor. Escaped mental patient? Would certainly explain the rash of deranged visitors he had today. He was going to make a complaint once he was out of here._

“You know what you’ve done, right Max?” he asked softly.

Max stared at him, what is this psycho up to? He reached for the call button, but the bastard had already moved it out of his reach with the restraints – again. He rattled against the supports of the hospital bed furiously, sick to death of being here alone and unable to do a damn thing by himself.

“It must be difficult for you,” the man said sympathetically. “Usually such a powerful guy, now stuck here, unable to even make a phone call without help.”

He sank slowly into the chair next to the bed. “Big shot in town, right Max? Partner in the largest law firm for miles – gives you a pretty nice life. I’ve seen your house, it’s beautiful. You’ve got everything – beautiful wife, cars, nice vacations. But it’s not enough, is it?”

This was stupid; Max was going to reach that call button once and for all to get this creep out of here. Who did he think he was coming in here and lecturing him?

“You like prostitutes, don’t you Max?” the creep continued. “Like how they make you feel – you can do anything you want, and they just want more. They’ll thank you for it. Like you _deserve_.”

Who was this fuck to sneer at him? Who cared if he liked prostitutes? It was his money, his time, his life.

“It’s too bad you don’t like condoms,” the man continued, his voice rising slowly.

Was this guy really going there?

The man rose and started pacing by the foot of his bed. “It’s really too bad you don’t like condoms. You know you killed them, right Max? You killed your children because you didn’t care about those women, you didn’t care about your wife, you certainly didn’t care about your children – it was just you. It’s always about you.”

“That isn’t true,” Max protested, the words hitting deep and leaving him slightly breathless.

“You didn’t bother getting treatment until after the miscarriage. You knew about the disease for six months before that.” The man wasn’t convinced. “You’ve killed and if you get out of this hospital bed, it’ll only be a matter of time before you do it again. I know your type: you don’t change. You _won’t_ change, you don’t want to. So what we have here Max, is a problem.”

Max didn’t like the look in the man’s eye as he raised the wood he had been holding earlier. The man mumbled something, but he had more pressing concerns than trying to figure out what the psycho was saying to a stick.

It was getting harder to breathe. There was something growing in his throat, something soft and pulsating softly and utterly relentless. He clawed for his throat frantically, but his arms wouldn’t reach.

There was something wrong with his arms, too, he noted hazily as the room started going black around the edges. They were lumpy … and … they… hurt….

~*~*~*~*~

“The victimology suggests our unsub is mission-oriented, ridding the world of people he views as undesirable, and HOLY CRAP!”

Aaron had definitely not shrieked like a little girl at the sudden appearance of Dean Winchester and his angel friend… Castiel? No matter what Dave later claimed. Considering that Dave had been pressed flat in the corner, Aaron didn’t think he had a leg to stand on.

“Hey dudes,” Winchester said nonchalantly, as if popping into random room in the middle of highly-armed and still twitchy FBI agents was a regular occurrence.

Though given his life, Aaron reflected, it’s entirely possible it was normal.

Prentiss recovered first. “What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were in Indiana?”

Winchester frowned. “I told you I was on my way. You think I’d stay there when you call me to say you saw my dead brother walking around?”

“Wait, I thought you said you had limited powers,” Aaron said to Castiel, frowning. If he’d been lying last year, lying when he could have helped Prentiss sooner, instead of leaving her in the cold to face pneumonia, then he was going to have words with the man – angel of the Lord or no.

“Events have changed that in the last four months,” the angel replied solemnly. “My Father elevated me above my former station and powers after Lucifer was once again trapped in the Pit.”

“Wait a minute,” Prentiss interrupted. “Let me get this straight – four months ago, Sam dies, Cas gets super-powered, Lucifer, who had apparently been walking around Earth and _you didn’t bother to tell us_ , was thrown back in the Pit, and you apparently decided to move to Indiana. Why do I think they were related?”

Dean grimaced. “It’s a long story.”

“Sam gave in and agreed to let Lucifer inhabit his body, Adam Winchester was resurrected and then gave his permission to allow Michael to inhabit his body, and the two met as prophesied for the end of days. Dean was grievously injured attempting to stop the coming Apocalypse, Bobby Singer and I were then killed.”

“Wait, what?”

Castiel continued, unconcerned with the chaos erupting around him. “After my Father restored me, and I restored Bobby Singer, I discovered Sam had wrested control from Lucifer and was able to throw himself and Michael into the Pit via the portal to Hell Dean created from the rings of the Four Horsemen.”

Aaron felt faint when he realized Castiel wasn’t finished. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were real? Castiel and Bobby Singer had died? And then been resurrected? By God?

Aaron knew his Bible, what good blue blood Virginian didn’t? But despite a debate with Reid on significance, he’d always believed in the Clock Maker Theory. That all the bad things in life that happened – his father, the disgusting things they saw each day, Haley – resulted from humans who’d been created and set loose by a benevolent God to do as they might with Free Will.

So why did Bobby Singer get a second chance and not Haley?

He’d apparently missed some of the conversation while internally debating theology. From Rossi’s sympathetic look, he’d been fairly obvious.

“So Sam Winchester managed to escape Hell by himself?” Reid asked dubiously. “And you don’t know how or why, even though it’s never been done before, and there are other, more pressing, problems. This I’m finding a little hard to believe.”

Winchester was glaring at the unruffled man, clearly the issue had come up before.

“It is not entirely unknown among the Winchesters,” Castiel replied. “But you are correct that there are more important issues at hand. We must locate the weapon causing the recent deaths before it can do more harm.”

“Can we go back to the Sam being alive thing?” Dean asked.

“As I have told you previously,” Castiel replied. “All I know is that Samuel Winchester is free of Lucifer’s essence. We must focus our efforts on regaining the weapon.”

“A weapon is doing this?” Morgan asked doubtfully, speaking up for the first time “Biological warfare?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Castiel confirmed.

Aaron had a hard time reading the man’s emotions. His face was so shuttered, almost blank, but it wasn’t anything he’d seen on the myriad faces of criminals across the country. Rather, it was as if he’d forgotten he had muscles in his face and couldn’t be bothered to learn to use them. Instead of hiding emotions, that blank face seemed to say that emotions were a foreign concept altogether.

Looking at him, short, spiky hair and a slightly askew tie, it was all too easy to forget that Castiel wasn’t human until moments like this.

“So what is it?” Prentiss asked. “What killed those people?”

“There has been much turmoil in Heaven since the Apocalypse was averted,” Castiel stated. “In that time many of Heaven’s most powerful weapons went… missing.”

“Heaven has a weapons locker?” Aaron asked faintly.

“What kind of weapons we talking about here?” Dean demanded.

“There could be a range really,” Reid replied thoughtfully. “There are a number of Biblical artifacts that could qualify-”

Castiel cut him off before the lecture could get too involved. Apparently he remembered Reid’s tendency to ramble.

“You’re wrong,” Castiel stated flatly. “Angelic weapons are forged in heaven or imbued with divine power. In addition to the more mundane swords and holy oil, there was a cache that contained our most powerful weapons – Lot’s Salt, the Staff of Moses and Aaron’s Rod, Gabriel’s Horn of Truth, and the Ark of the Covenant to name a few.”

“How’d they go missing?” Rossi demanded.

Detective Irving entered the room suddenly, but stopped whatever explanation he had planned to give when he caught sight of the two extra inhabitants of the small room. He raised an eyebrow curiously at Aaron.

“Consultants,” he replied to the unanswered question. “What’s going on?”

Irving shook his head slowly, as if not quite believing the nearly homicidal man in flannel and his smaller, more rumpled, companion could be FBI consultants (because he wasn’t an idiot, Aaron thought sarcastically). He pushed on admirably and said, “Got some bad news. Hospital called, Hetton didn’t make it.”

“Reid, Rossi, go check it out,” Aaron commanded. The two gathered their things and left quickly, but Irving still stood awkwardly in the doorframe. “Anything else?”

“We think there’s been another attack,” he replied. “Just called in a few minutes ago.”

“Let’s go.”

~*~*~*~*~

Winchester and Morgan were disturbingly similar at times Emily noted, watching the two men prowl around the room in a strange parallel. Neither could stand still for very long, and each had examined every nook and cranny in the formal living room several times.

Father Merrill lied splayed out on the carpet, broken tea cup by his hand. It was weird, Emily thought, to see a priest in jeans. They’d never been that informal in Italy, she mused.

Hotch was interviewing Sister Mary-Beth Baird, who’d finally stopped crying a few minutes ago. So far, nothing interesting had come up besides Father Merrill’s penchant for sermons on the evils of premarital sex and unwed mothers.

Emily batted another bug away irritably damn things were everywhere. “Anything?” she asked Morgan, leaving Dean to his prowling and Castiel… to his standing in the middle of the room and not blinking.

“Doesn’t look like there was anyone else here,” Morgan said. “Just like the others. I don’t get how some kind of weapon could be used. The head wound is new though.”

“Could have come from a fall,” she suggested. She knelt down to check; sure enough the coffee table was tacky with blood.

Dean swatted a bug and then froze, dropping suddenly to examine Father Merrill’s body intently. “Nasty,” he muttered softly.

She followed his line of sight, bugs were crawling in the Father’s head wound. Nasty indeed.

“Anything?” he asked Castiel softly, dragging them both to the far end of the room away from Hotch and the Sister.

“I think that Aaron’s Rod may be responsible,” Castiel replied after a moment’s consideration.

Dean barely suppressed a snigger, but Emily couldn’t stop her eye-roll. Boys.

“It is no laughing matter Dean,” Castiel replied archly. “It is a fearsome weapon indeed.”

Dean didn’t appear impressed. “So Aaron’s dick is doing what exactly? Bringing the plagues back, one at a time?”

“You said yourself in Ohio – a rain of blood, boils, and now locusts. We need to find the Rod and its bearer.”

“And Sam,” Dean added pointedly.

“And the guy responsible for murdering eight people,” Emily reminded them both.

The two men looked surprised at her intrusion, but damn if she was going to let something as minor as an angelic weapon, a man escaping from Hell, and the Biblical plagues stop her from solving the case.

Castiel nodded. “Yes, we must find out who was responsible for the Rod leaving Heaven. Good point.”

“That not what I meant,” Emily said flatly.

Castiel looked confused.

“Give it up,” Dean advised tiredly, leaning against the wall and looking out the window wistfully. “He’s been on a ‘human affairs are too puny for my awesome attention’ kick lately.”

He tensed suddenly, then bolted out of the room. Emily could see him running down the road frantically.

“Prentiss,” Hotch commanded, but she was already following the hunter’s desperate run. She wasn’t sure if he had planned on ordering her to follow or to stay, but in any case it was too late now.

She could see Dean gaining on a tall figure and redoubled her pace.

~*~*~*~*~

Dr. Gablehouser was waiting for them at the hospital door. “The boils got worse,” he said brusquely, guiding them down to the morgue. “I’ve never seen a case so bad. They grew so big they cut off the air supply to his lungs.”

Spencer’s mind whirled. Boils, heavenly weapons – the ten plagues of Egypt? Exodus 9: 8-9 King James version, “And the LORD said unto Moses and unto Aaron, Take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it toward the heaven in the sight of the Pharaoh. And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt.”

“Do you know what caused them to grow so rapidly?” Rossi asked.

Dr. Gablehouser nodded thoughtfully. “It’s actually thanks to Dr. Reid here that we even have a clue.”

Spencer thought back to their last meeting. “A previous medication?”

“An antibiotic,” Dr. Gablehouser confirmed. “He was on doxycycline for chlamydia. We think that’s what kept him alive so much longer than the others.”

“But the last update we received was that Hetton was getting better,” Rossi said, confused. “How did he go from fighting off whatever this is to dying from it in a matter of hours?”

“A new strain? Compromised immune system?” Dr. Gablehouse suggested. “We’re still not really sure what changed. I’ll let you know when the latest tests come through.”

They left the pathologist’s office to talk to Hetton’s head nurse, maybe she’d noticed something. Hell, maybe they’d get luck and the unsub had come for one last visit.

Mitzy Lish was the nurse on record, but it took trips to three separate break rooms across four floors to find her. She was lounging across three chairs, iPod playing classic rock clutched tightly to her chest.

“Mitzy Lish?” Rossi asked, shaking the dozing nurse gently. “SSA Agent David Rossi and SSA Dr. Spencer Reid, we have a few questions about Max Hetton.”

“Shame,” she said casually. “He seemed to be getting better. At least he had a couple visitors before he died – we were starting to get worried. Nothing sadder than someone alone in the hospital, you know?”

“Do you remember what the visitors looked like?” Spencer asked, distantly wondering if he could become psychic later in life. He made a mental note to ask Dean Winchester when things died down, for some reason Chuck hadn’t been answering his email for a while and he missed having a reliable source of information on supernatural phenomena.

“His wife maybe?” Rossi suggested.

Lish shook her head. “No, visitors were definitely guys. No women came.”

“How many men?” Spencer asked.

Lish looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, I’m not really sure. I’ve got six other patients on that floor and things got pretty hairy last night. There were at least two, I can tell you that much.”

Rossi whipped out his notebook. “What’d they look like?”

“Um, first guy was younger. Maybe mid to late twenties? Big guy.”

“Big as in tall, or big as in large?” Spencer asked.

“Tall,” Lish confirmed. “This guy was massive. He actually spent some time visiting Mrs. Walker before going in to see Hetton, so I’m not sure if he really came to visit Hetton or was just being polite.”

“Do you have a lot of people just being polite?” Rossi asked politely, though he clearly doubted this was a regular occasion.

“Not really,” Lish admitted. “But anything’s possible, right?”

Spencer shrugged. “What about the other guy? Do you remember anything about him?”

“I got a better look at him. Older guy, fifties maybe? White, really intense.”

Rossi shot Spencer a dark look. “What do you mean intense?”

Lish hesitated. “You know how you just get vibes off people? He was just kind of off when he asked me for Hetton’s room number. Said he was an old friend.”

“And you told him?”

Lish flushed angrily at Rossi’s insinuation. “He came during visiting hours. What was I supposed to do? It wasn’t like Hetton’s room had special instructions or a police escort. He said he was a friend; that happens every day.”

This wasn’t going to end nicely, Spencer realized as he saw Rossi’s spine stiffen at Lish’s defensiveness. He noticed a round black shape and interrupted Rossi’s latest sarcastic response. “Do you have security cameras in Hetton’s room?”

Lish shook her head. “But we do have cameras in all the hallways,” she offered.

“Thanks for your help,” Spencer replied, already pulling out his cell to call Garcia.

“You can’t use that there,” Lish said before he could push speed dial. “There’s an ok area down two floors, but no cells allowed on this floor.”

Spencer found himself wishing he hadn’t interrupted Rossi earlier, but managed to thank the nurse and head down to the phone area.

“Sam Winchester, you think?” Rossi asked on their way down.

“Most likely,” Spencer replied. “But I do want to know who this other guy is.”

~*~*~*~*~

Sam really hadn’t prepared for this; Dean was supposed to be living the dream, a normal life, with Lisa and Ben in Indiana, not chasing him like maniac through the streets of Portsmouth.

It was a distraction he really couldn’t afford right now.

Unfortunately, Dean’s months in suburbia didn’t mean he ‘d let himself go. And while Sam had always been better at sprints, Dean could outlast the best of them. And if Sam wasn’t mistaken, Agent Prentiss was fast on Dean’s heels.

If he could make it another three blocks, he’d get to the car and would be able to put enough space between them to at least finish the case before getting caught up again in Winchester family drama.

He had enough of that with Samuel. That was one thing to be grateful for at least, that the old man had taken the cousins off on a training exercise and finally left Sam in peace.

His lungs burned, but the car was in sight. He risked looking behind him only to see his brother make a desperate tackle before his face met the pavement.

 _Goddamn it._

~*~*~*~*~

Watching Dean attempt to wrestle his brother to the ground only to give up and slam his head into the pavement made Emily glad that she was an only child. Of course, if she’d had siblings, she rather doubted they’d have the same volatile relationship Dean had with his brother (for one thing, she hoped neither she nor her hypothetical sibling would die as often as the brothers appeared to).

She flashed her badge around to several concerned citizens who’d wandered over to watch the fight, then helped Dean drag his unconscious brother into the nearby car. She wasn’t sure how’d she explain going through an unconscious man’s pants’ pockets to find the keys if pressed, but luckily no one seemed too interested in pressing for details. It was a toss-up if that was due to Dean’s expression or her drawn gun.

“Where we headed?” she asked when they all finally got in the car.

“Motel,” Dean answered brusquely. “The Orange Grove.”

“And why are we stealing Sam’s car again?”

“My baby’s on the side of the highway in Ohio. Ass didn’t even give me a heads up we were about to travel Angel Air. I swear if there’s a ding on that car when I get back…”

She helped him pull Sam back out of the backseat when they arrived at the motel. It was indeed a truly startling shade of orange and it looked like someone had attempted to make a “grove” of plastic palm trees at the entrance to the main office.

They dumped Sam onto one of the wooden chairs Dean placed in the center of the room, dragging it over from the small table in the corner. The room was small and smelled like cheap beer and stale smoke, but Dean didn’t appear to notice. He tossed a marker at her once she holstered her gun and told her to get to work making a devil’s trap around Sam’s chair.

“Didn’t Castiel say he’s not Lucifer’s host anymore?” she questioned curiously, carefully drawing an unbroken circle on the floor with the Sharpie Dean tossed her from the table.

He glowered and instead of answering left the room, only to return a moment later with a large duffle bag.

“Sam’s weapons,” he explained at her prompt, before waving her on to continue drawing the trap. He took a bundle of rope out of the bag and started tying his brother down, one limb at a time.

“Isn’t this kind of overkill? Seriously Dean, he’s not a host anymore and really, every limb _and_ the chest? What, you think he’s going to be able to get through all of those knots?”

“Yes,” he replied flatly.

She was about to step out to update Hotch when Sam started groaning. Check-in forgotten, she waited nervously next to Dean. He threw a glass of water at his brother.

She knew that move all too well, but unlike last time, Sam just opened his eyes and said, “I’m not possessed, Dean.”

There was something… off about Sam. When she’d met the man last, he’d been desperate to find his brother. But now? It was as if he was greeting an old schoolmate – the recognition was there, but none of the shared history or strange codependence that had been in full-force last winter.

Dean stiffened beside her.

“Could have fooled me Sammy,” he replied. He picked up a small knife he’d laid out on the table and nicked his brother’s hand causally.

“Not a shapeshifter either,” the tied-up man replied. “Look, it’s me. Can you just untie me so we can get back to the important thing here – crazy old guy trying to kill sinners?”

“You’ve seen the unsub?” Emily asked at the same time Dean roared, “Important thing?”

“You know, the family business?” Sam replied sarcastically. “Killing things, saving people? Not going to do any good tied up here, am I? We’ve got a case, don’t be an idiot.”

The room suddenly felt to small to Emily as Dean started yelling.

“An idiot? Really Sam, I’m being an idiot?” Dean ranted. “To think that something might be wrong? Because let’s think about this Sammy – my brother would never let me think he’s being tortured day in and day out. Never.”

“I don’t know what to tell you Dean,” Sam replied. “I just woke up and was here. I was myself. I did the tests too – silver, exorcism, devil’s trap, holy water – I’m just me.”

“Then why?”

Emily really wished she wasn’t here right now. It didn’t seem right witnessing the raw hurt and pain; Dean was normally so strong, but right now he just looked broken. Like the countless mothers she’d informed of their child’s death over the years, as if a vital part was missing and there wasn’t anything in the world to bring it back.

“You looked happy, Dean,” Sam replied. “So I went and continued on the hunt.”

“When?”

“After you got to Lisa’s,” Sam admitted.

“Sam, you’ve always been the one with the giant lady boner for suburbia. I was doing it for you. Why not just tell me you were back?”

“Because you’d want to join me,” Sam hesitated. “And I didn’t want that.”

Dean looked like he’d been struck. Emily could empathize; it was as if an entirely different man was sitting before her.

“By the end, you were broken. And I… I just wanted to hunt. No more fights over demon blood or destiny or anything. Just hunting.”

“I’m calling Cas,” Dean said, leaving an awkward message on the other man’s phone.

“Oh please, the son of a bitch never answers… he’s behind me isn’t he?” Sam asked.

Emily nodded slowly, she didn’t think she’d ever get used to people suddenly appearing. At least she knew her reflexes were still good, she noted as she sheepishly reholstered her gun once again.

“What’s wrong with him,” Dean demanded. “Fix him.”

Castiel looked unimpressed.

“I told you, there’s nothing wrong,” Sam protested. “And you! Cas, why didn’t you answer me any of the times I called? Hell, I even tried praying!”

Castiel shrugged. “I have been busy.”

“You answered Dean,” Sam accused.

The angel looked uncomfortable. “He and I share a stronger bond. I wasn’t going to mention it.” He turned to Dean. “I cannot say this more plainly, this is your brother.”

Dean shook his head. “Something isn’t right. You really telling me he came out of the Pit perfectly fine without any help?”

“Maybe our Father decided to reward him for his selfless act?” Castiel suggested.

“Look,” Dean said. “I’m saying the Sam I know would never decide to hunt instead of telling his brother he’s not suffering unspeakable torment in Hell. Can’t you just do some angel flashy-thingy and check?”

Castiel frowned. “Flashy-thingy,” he pronounced carefully, positively oozing disdain.

“I don’t know, just double check he’s the same guy who loves puppies and cries at Disney movies. I don’t know, read his soul or something.”

“We don’t have time for this Dean,” Sam protested, struggling against his bonds. “Seriously, crazy guy with a plague weapon ringing any bells?”

“You knew what it was the whole time?” Emily asked, her turn to become irrationally angry. “You knew?”

“Yes…”

“Then why didn’t you tell us,” she asked, finally beginning to feel some glimmer of the betrayal Dean must be dealing with. “The FBI involvement has been all over the news, you could have told us it was something supernatural days ago! Before more people died!”

“It’s not your kind of work,” Sam dismissed.

“Didn’t stop you from investigating a human serial killer,” she accused.

“Sam is right,” Castiel declared. “There is no more time for delay. We must find whoever has the weapon and determine how he gained access to it.”

“And stop him from killing, right?” Emily pressed.

Castiel nodded absentmindedly. “Right.”

“Hold up,” Dean protested. “Seriously, how long could it take for you to soul-whammy Sam? Three seconds? Just get it over with and we’ll go.”

Sam huffed from his seat. “There’s nothing wrong, I’ve just been really focused on hunting – it’s been nonstop since I got back. We need to get going.”

Emily could see Castiel wavering. “We’re wasting time. Can you just _soul-whammy_ \- really Dean? - Sam so we can go?”

“It will hurt,” he replied.

Sam rolled his eyes from the chair. “This conversation hurts. If it’ll make the princess feel better,” and he nodded exaggeratedly to his brother, “then go ahead.”

~*~*~*~*~

“Pulling up the security footage now,” Garcia said over speakerphone, her fingers clacking over the keyboard rapidly in the background. He and Spencer had been able to find a quiet corner - a miracle as far as Dave was concerned - to call the technical analyst.

“All right, I’ve got the right camera,” she said distractedly, “I’m sending the video to your phone Reid.”

The small screen didn’t show much. Just the usual hustle and bustle of a hospital: nurses in scrubs moving between rooms as various lights lit up on over doorways, staff bearing medicine going between rooms, visitors bearing flowers and presents trickling in and out.

“Go a couple hours before Hetton’s death,” Rossi directed, watching as the video suddenly sped up.

“Wait,” Spencer interrupted. “Go back.”

“Where?”

Spencer kept watching the screen, looking for what Rossi couldn’t tell. “Wait, there. Stop it.”

The man on the screen was familiar to them both – Sam Winchester.

“He goes into the room across the hall,” Dave noted.

“There were doctors in Hetton’s room,” Spencer pointed out. “He’s waiting them out. Look, there after the room clears out.”

“He crosses the hall. Good eyes, Reid,” Dave complimented.

“Not to burst your bubbles, boys, but the time stamp on this is almost four hours before Hetton died,” Garcia said. “A lot can go wrong in that time.”

“Keep going forward,” Dave said. “A bit slower this time. Anyone else go into the room? Our mysterious old man maybe?”

Garcia pushed a few buttons and the footage moved forward once more. The next few hours passed on the screen, but nothing suspicious jumped out until twenty minutes before Hetton’s death.

“There he is,” Dave said softly.

The man’s head was down, avoiding the cameras even better than Sam Winchester had. He was older, sure, but Dave would have pegged him as middle aged. Of course, that could be because he looked closer to Dave’s age than his father’s.

The man on the screen didn’t look impressive, though few of their unsubs ever did. White, broad shouldered, but walking hunched over, as if trying to fold into himself. He shuffled into Hetton’s room and no one blinked an eye in the hallway. Of course, no one else entered behind him.

This was their guy, Dave knew it.

“How long was he in there?” Dave demanded.

“Eighteen minutes,” Garcia answered promptly. “A nurse noticed he wasn’t breathing when she came in two minutes later to deliver another IV. They couldn’t bring him back.”

“He was hooked up to a heart monitor, right?” Reid asked. “They should have noticed earlier.”

“Looks like the machine malfunctioned sweet-cheeks,” Garcia said. “It was reporting normal functions for another hour after he died.”

Dave and Reid exchanged uneasy looks.

“Can you follow the last visitor any more? Get a better look at him?” Dave asked after a moment.

“Tracking now,” Garcia said, the video flashing over the screen too fast for Dave to track. “Ok, here he is leaving. Tricky bastard, his head is down the whole time. Ok, hallway, hallway, hallway, still nada. Oh!”

The video jumped on screen again.

“Elevators!” she crowd. “Everyone always forgets about-”

She stops suddenly.

“Is that who I think it is?” Reid asked softly, bringing the phone closer to his face.

It was.

Jason Gideon was staring back.

~*~*~*~*~

“Are you sure?” Derek asked for the twelfth time, clearly unable to wrap his mind around the idea. Aaron forced himself not to snap and somehow managed to nod tightly, desperately trying not to let the younger agent see how confused he was as well. He’d honestly thought Gideon would commit suicide before becoming what they’d spent so many years hunting. But in a twisted way in made sense – Gideon had left because he couldn’t handle any more losses.

And this unsub had been smart, never leaving a trace before the hospital, the local PD only realizing there was a problem after six people had died.

Not unknown anymore, Aaron correctly mentally, wincing slightly. Gideon had killed those people; it wasn’t some unknown person choosing victims at random, but rather his mentor – the team’s mentor – carefully choosing his victims based on their misdeeds and sentencing them to a terrible death.

God, he was going to have to testify that this was likely premeditated.

“You ready for this?” he asked when they finally arrived at the hotel Garcia fingered as Gideon’s most likely retreat. He hadn’t had to lay out search parameters, she’d known as they all had that Gideon would choose a less urban area over an urban area, one that allowed easy access into town, and offered long-term rates. She had a list of three possible hotels, but pointed out this hotel had great reviews from bird watching groups.

They’d all broken a little bit in that moment, Aaron reflected.

Now though, Morgan simply nodded and headed towards the main desk – Gideon’s picture crumpling in his hand with every step.

The desk clerk recognized him immediately, of course, and nervously handed them the key for the last room on the south wing. Luckily, the hallway is relatively clear – a flash of their badges getting rid of the cleaning staff quickly – and they closed in quickly.

A blonde man exited the room next to Gideon’s, eating a bag of potato chips intently – examining each chip carefully before placing it in his mouth.

Morgan grabbed his arms and guided him back into his room. “Sir, we have a dangerous situation here. Please stay in your room until the danger’s over.”

The man looks offended. “Wait until the danger’s… over? Really? You’re trying that line?”

“Sir, please don’t make this difficult,” Morgan said. “We’ll let you know when the danger’s passed. Just stay here.”

“I don’t think so,” the man replied. “I don’t take orders anymore. It’s a whole new universe – and I get to decide now.”

The pit in Aaron’s stomach grew by the minute as this strange man started to rave. The look in his eyes was strangely familiar and the room started to feel too small, as if there was a great presence struggling to be contained and Aaron is standing in its way.

He’s felt this way before. In Missouri and Wisconsin.

“Who are you?” he asked abruptly, interrupting the stranger’s rant on the brilliance of John Locke.

“Balthazar,” the man replied. “And you?”

“Special Agent Morgan, FBI,” Morgan replied before Aaron could think to tell him it might be a bad idea. He hadn’t been an obsessed with the supernatural as Reid and Prentiss after their encounters with the Winchester brother, but he’d done some basic research. Even he knew names could have power.

“And this is Special Agent Hotchner,” Morgan continued, oblivious to the growing danger.

“Well, Special Agents Morgan and Hotchner,” Balthazar replied with a large grin. “What happens after I stay put like a good little soldier? You apprehend the bad guy in the room next to mine? Lock him up?”

“So he’ll never hurt anyone again,” Morgan confirmed.

The man’s teasing expression abruptly left his face, eyes now dark and narrowed. “Sorry, I’m not into that anymore. No more orders, no more cages, just glorious, glorious choice.”

He lunged at them, the tight quarters preventing Aaron from even getting to his holster before the man grabbed their shoulders tightly. “Besides, I’m not done with him yet.”

Dry heat was the first thing Aaron noticed. The lack of a hotel room, clouds, trees, or anything remotely familiar, the second. He was in the desert, he realized a minute later, and there wasn’t a road to be seen.

“Where the hell are we?” Derek demanded, kicking the sand angrily.

~*~*~*~*~

Just as Castiel crossed the room and extended a hand slowly towards Sam’s abdomen her phone rang. The mood in the room changed abruptly, she realized, as she answered immediately. Sam’s demands to be untied were met and Castiel was no longer willing to indulge Dean, insisting that they find out who has stolen the weapons cache – the implications of that sentence were going to be haunting Emily for a good while longer – and admonishing him to stop wasting time.

She can’t regret agreeing with Dean though, not with the cold way Sam’s eyes assess her now. She’s used to drawing the male gaze more often than not – she’s hot, she owns it – but he looks beyond her appearance and seems to simply be assessing how useful she’d be. Would she let him down in a firefight, his eyes ask now. Last year, he asked them for help finding his brother after they realized it wasn’t their type of case. Now she wondered if he’d let that stop him from moving on.

It chills her, to be honest, more than the news that Doyle had escaped from a North Korean prison, more than realizing that she had beaten him one final time by surviving while he’d died, and more than the realization that the supernatural was real. To see one person so completely changed wasn’t right.

Garcia had been babbling into her phone for a solid five minutes. “Wait, what? Garcia I need to you slow down,” she said, finally finding space to get a word in. “I swear it sounds like you said Gideon was the unsub.”

“Em,” Garcia replied slowly. “I did. And now Hotch and Morgan aren’t answering their phones and it’s all my fault because I sent them there-“

“Where?” Emily demanded, unable to processes the additional shock well enough to comfort her friend. “Where is he?”

“80 Front Street,” Garcia replied instantly. “A hotel called the Sawyer Depot.”

“On it.”

“Wasn’t Gideon your boss?” Dean asked. “The one who left? That sucks monkey balls.”

“Yeah,” is all she can manage to reply. “Castiel, can you get us there?”

The angel looks upwards, as if he has a map of the world in his head and is zooming in on the proper street and house number. A second later, she’s in a poorly lit hallway with terrible carpeting. Another motel. Guess he can, she mused.

Sam kicked the door in without warning and she flanked him, Dean at her back with a pistol raised with Castiel following them in apparently unarmed and unconcerned.

Gideon was standing when they burst into the room. She’d half-hoped Garcia had been wrong, but the man looked the same as ever. Casual clothes, rumpled as always, neatly shaved and hair still salt-and-pepper. She wasn’t sure why she was expecting him to look different, but it still felt unfair that he looked the same as he had when he walked out of their lives three years ago. He shouldn’t look the same so she wouldn’t want to lower her gun and ask him how he’d liked the birds in the area and if he still had the Chaplin reels handy.

Had the stress of too many unsubs, too many victims gotten to him? He’d left the BAU – left them – to rediscover life, she thought bitterly, not to take it.

Gideon was strangely calm, despite the multitude of weapons pointed at him. He smiled. “Hello Emily, long time.”

Personalization it was then. She knew his tricks all too well.

“Hello Jason,” she replied. “How are you doing today?”

“I’m doing all right, you?” His voice was soft with a slight rasp. Strange how that hadn’t changed either.

“Been better,” she admitted. “Would have been nice not to see you again like this.”

Dean looked at her like she’d lost her mind and she could practically see Sam’s finger itch. She nodded fractionally; _let me handle it,_ she pleaded mentally.

“Who’re your friends?” Gideon asked conversationally. He walked over to the bed where a long stick lay.

Dean tensed, but managed to keep his brother in line. Unfortunately, Castiel was out of reach.

“Aaron’s Rod,” Castiel said reverently, striding towards the bed. “Where did you get that? It is not yours to have.”

Suddenly Gideon wasn’t looking so friendly anymore. He grabbed the staff abruptly and held it over his head. He started chanting, Hebrew if her guess was correct, and Castiel backed off quickly.

That wasn’t a good sign.

She didn’t want to know what scared an angel.

~*~*~*~*~

Clearing the hotel had taken far too long, but after the sudden disappearance of Hotch and Morgan, Spencer wasn’t willing to take any chances. He trailed Rossi down the long hallway carefully towards Francis Willughby’s room. As far as cover names went, it was better than the ones the Winchesters’ typically chose, Spencer thought. Though, if you knew Gideon’s love of birds, it was also a bit of a giveaway.

When they finally arrived, the door was open and an argument was spilling into the hallway. It was disjointed, but Reid could hear Emily’s normally even tone becoming sharper, louder. It wasn’t a good sign.

When they entered the room, Spencer almost dropped his gun at the sight. Emily and both Winchester brothers were closest to them, their hands in the air and guns kicked towards Gideon. The angel Castiel was sitting on the queen in the middle of the room, his hands folded neatly in his lap. Spencer could have understood their positions if Gideon had a hostage with him by the window, but the older man was simply holding a piece of wood.

“Hands in the air,” Rossi barked, clearly able to overcome his disorientation faster than Spencer. “Or I will shoot.”

Gideon ignored the order and instead smiled beatifically. “It’s good to see you again Spencer. I read your latest article, very interesting conclusions.”

“Thank you,” Spencer replied automatically. “What’s going on?” he asked dumbly. “What are you doing Gideon?”

“What must be done,” Gideon replied serenely. “What I’ve always done – punished those who have done wrong. Spencer, you and David should both put your weapons down. I’d hate for someone to get hurt accidentally.”

“Jason Gideon has the Rod of Aaron,” Castiel said woodenly. “It is a powerful weapon capable of much destruction. You should lower your weapons, he has proved his capacity for using the staff,” he said pointedly. Looking back at Gideon, he asked, “How did you get a hold of it?”

Gideon ignored him in favor of studying the crowded entryway. Spencer didn’t like the renewed attention, Gideon was looking at them the same way he used to look at unsubs before an interrogation – an interesting puzzle, but lacking some key component that made them worthy of humanity. For all his ability at profiling, Spencer had always worried about Gideon’s ease at putting people into slots – people were either good, bad, or unsubs.

“It is not meant for human hands,” Castiel continued. “It is a weapon of Heaven, how did you get it? Who gave it to you?”

“I know you,” Gideon said softly. “I’ve seen you before.”

“We used to work with you,” Prentiss replied softly. “Jason – it’s Emily, Emily Prentiss? We worked together at the BAU, do you remember?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gideon replied sharply. “I’m not crazy – I’ve seen you two before,” he said, gesturing with the staff to the Winchester brothers. Both had been surreptitiously reaching towards their boots – hidden weapons, Spencer assumed – but froze when Gideon started gesturing with the staff again.

Gideon’s focused on the Winchesters. He says he knows them, he’s seen their faces before.

“Dude,” Dean replied immediately, “I would remember someone as freaky as you.”  
Spencer winced at the man’s bluntness. From his sudden wince, Spencer assumed Prentiss must have stepped on the man’s foot for trying to piss off Gideon.

“Put down the weapon,” Sam said tightly. “You need to be stopped.”

Dean elbowed Prentiss, pushing away her restraining arms. “Wait, what? Sammy, this is usually where you do your ‘I’m a bleeding heart, let’s braid each other’s hair and be BFF’s, life is so hard, I know’ bit.”

Sam doesn’t answer his brother, doesn’t even acknowledge the other man has spoken; instead, he’s sizing up Gideon. It’s odd, Spencer realizes, to think that in the face of his previous mentor threatening to kill them with a heavenly artifact used in Egypt, his balance is more thrown by two brothers not speaking.

Gideon’s face clears suddenly. “I’ve never met you, but I know you both,” he said. “I talked to Victor about you both.”

“Crap,” Dean whispered softly.

Gideon is punishing sinners. And being on the FBI’s most wanted list for murder, torture, and grave desecration would certainly qualify.

“He was a good agent,” Gideon continued. “And those girls didn’t deserve what you did to them Dean. I don’t know how you’ve managed to get away with it for so long, but it ends now. You need to be punished – just like the rest.”

He raised the staff and started chanting. A strong wind ripped through the room suddenly and an unearthly wail reverberated, reaching into the depths of Spencer’s stomach. Oh god, why had he ever stolen the drugs from Tobias he wondered as he fell gracelessly to the floor.

Beside him, Rossi and Prentiss were writhing. Rossi desperately wiping tears from his face and Prentiss curled into fetal position, hands above her head as if to shielding from invisible blows.

“You know the headaches are a sign you’re crazy,” his mother said simply, brushing a stray piece of hair off his face the same way she used to when they read the long afternoon away together on her bed.

“You’re not here,” Spencer replied stubbornly, trying to close his eyes to block her out. But his eyes wouldn’t cooperate, they wouldn’t close – he couldn’t stop seeing her. She was wearing her favorite sweater, her face screwed up as she looked at him with disgust.

“Of course I’m not,” she replied. “I’m locked up in that prison you shipped me off to so you could live the high-life. Why do you hate me Spencer?”

“Stop it, stop it,” he whispered. He just needed to close his eyes, just get the image out of his mind – his hands over his ears weren’t helping anyway.

It took a few tries to make his hands cooperate; the wailing had gotten louder, if anything, and his hands would just not work correctly. His nail scratched his face as he scrambled to cover his eyes, the blood trickling down his cheek felt better than every hit he’d ever taken. It even made his mother’s image disappear for a moment.

As suddenly as it started, it stopped. The wailing, the visions of his mother, the chanting – all silent. Just the sounds of heavy breathing filled the room as they carefully picked themselves off the floor.

The others had scratches on their faces. Prentiss poked her face gently and tried dabbing some of the blood with her jacket sleeve to little avail.

“Same as Randy White,” she said softly, though the all-encompassing silence pervading the room made her sound like she was shouting. She grimaced. “We would have kept going until we scratched our eyes out.”

“Or worse,” Dean agreed. “Nasty fucker. Thanks Cas.”

In the far corner, Castiel was standing over Gideon’s prone form carefully peeling his fingers off the staff. Unconscious, it was so easy to forget what Gideon had done. He was too familiar; Spencer looked at him and still thought “teacher” not “killer.”

This was going to be a mess.

“Got the staff all squared away Cas?” Dean asked curiously. “’Cause I’d really like to avoid a repeat-”

“Something’s up,” Sam interrupted his brother as he lunged for his gun in the center of the room.

The hair on Spencer’s neck rose at Sam’s announcement. He scanned the room quickly, eight people all accounted for in various conditions, but no one seriously injured.

But there’d only been seven when they started, Spencer realized, his stomach sinking. There was extra person in the room.

~*~*~*~*~

Dean’s frozen before he’s able to grab his Colt from where he’d kicked it at Gideon’s insistence. Apparently the day could get worse, he thought sarcastically, as he managed to get a look at the asshole who had decided to join the party.

Blonde, skuzzy, with a weird jacket and t-shirt. Angel or demon?

“Balthazar,” Castiel whispered softly, whatever mumbo-jumbo keeping Dean and the others still obviously not effecting him. “I had thought you perished in the Apocalypse.”

Angel then, Dean realized. But honestly, after all the crap they’d gone through last year, he wasn’t sure he should be so relieved he wasn’t facing a demon.

“Took a page out of your book, dear brother,” Balthazar replied. “This free choice thing? Totally awesome.” He grinned widely. “But brother, you are truly ruining my fun here.”

“Fun?” Prentiss demands harshly, struggling against the invisible bonds keeping them all in place helplessly. “People are dead, what kind of monster are you?”

“Monster?” Balthazar looked offended. “I’m just doing my brother’s good work – spreading free will everywhere and letting the pieces fall where they will. After all, I learnt from the best.”

“Is he going to be another Gabriel?” Dean asked Sam quietly. His brother didn’t bother responding, yet another sign something was wrong. A year ago his brother would have scolded him for the joke, mentioned that the Trickster turned angel had been a valued ally at the end. And probably snickered a bit too. Now it was just a look that clearly said “get serious Dean.” Hell, looked exactly like the one Dad used to use on Sammy when he whined about homework during a hunt.

“You gave this man the staff,” Castiel said, pulling a sword from his trench coat. “Where are the rest of the weapons?”

“No need for violence,” Balthazar replied, holding his hands up innocently.

“Says the guy who’s responsible for all those people dying,” Rossi muttered unhappily.

“Free choice,” Balthazar replied airly. “He wanted vengeance, I just gave him weapon – he didn’t have to use it.”

“Gideon left the BAU because of violence, he wouldn’t have done this,” Reid protested.

“He did, oh geeky one,” Balthazar replied. “Geeky – such language you apes invent! Just feels fun on the tongue.”

“What did you trade?” Sam asked, unimpressed with Balthazar’s impromptu love-fest of the English language. “Your kind never gives anything away for free – it’s all in the fine print.”

“Nothing he couldn’t afford to miss. It’s not like he needs his soul anyway.” Balthazar crooked an eyebrow at Sam. “It’s all the rage right now.”

“Give it back,” Reid demanded.

Dean snorted softly. Yeah, good luck with that. Reasoning and bargaining hadn’t really worked out so well in the past with angels – he distinctly remembered Zachariah giving him cancer and vanishing Sam’s lungs in one negotiation session.

“Let me think about that,” Balthazar tapped his chin thoughtfully. “No.”

Castiel charged him, his sword catching a loose coat sleeve as Balthazar twisted out of the way easily. Castiel continued jabbing, making little headway as Balthazar continued to dodge as they moved across the room.

While the others were absorbed in the two angel’s battle, Dean realized he could move. Barely and it felt like swimming through molasses, but it was a start. Keeping an eye out in case Balthazar realized he was free, he slowly reached towards his gun. Balthazar switched to the offensive when Castiel tripped over Gideon.

 _Bang_.

It only slowed Balthazar for a minute, but Castiel used it to his advantage. “Thank you Dean,” he said, pressing the tip of sword into Balthazar’s neck lightly.

“No problem,” he said. “It made me feel a heck of a lot better.”

“You’re a ‘get a bigger hammer’ type of problem solver, aren’t you,” Reid asked, picking himself off the floor ungracefully.

“A bigger hammer?” Dean couldn’t help grinning. “Nah, I prefer C4.”

“You fought with me,” Castiel said. “For that I am grateful. But I must know where the weapons cache is. Where have you hidden the rest of the weapons?”

Beside him, Prentiss was ready to explode. “Gideon doesn’t have a soul?” she asked horrified. “You took his soul? Why?”

“It was good business decision. One soul for one weapon of heavenly destruction,” Balthazar replied, ignoring Castiel completely. “Souls have power. Whoever controls the souls, the more power – urk.”

Castiel didn’t appreciate being ignored apparently. “Where are the weapons?”

“I would like to know as well,” a new voice interjected.

What good were Enochian runes carved into his rib cage if angels kept popping up like daisies?

“Raphael,” Castiel replied. “I thought you were busy shoring up support in Heaven.”

“Never too busy for you, dear brother,” Raphael drawled. He motioned impatiently and two others entered the room. “Secure the weapon.”

“Well, this is awkward,” Balthazar said nervously, taking advantage of Castiel’s distraction to back away from the sword and get to his feet. “Peace out.”

“Remind me to shoot him next time I see him,” Emily whispered, glaring at the now empty space where Balthazar had cowered.

“You’re a hell of a women, Emily Prentiss,” Dean replied. “Now hold onto your panties, this is going to get ugly – fast.”

Tight quarters were never preferable, especially when dealing with three unfriendlies – especially those that had no problem throwing you through walls or windows. And trying to protect the four civilians and the crazy old guy wasn’t going to be easy. He nodded at Sam; he was ready.

Sam reached down and threw a knife at the closest angel. Damn it, how’d he missed that one earlier?

The angel laughed and backhanded Sam across the room. Rossi, Prentiss and Reid started firing but it had as little effect as the knife. It was like spritzing a charging lion with a water bottle and hoping kitty would finally learn.

On the other side of the room, Castiel was trying to reason with Raphael. “I expected more from you – the Apocalypse has been averted, it is time for a new way.”

Raphael snorted and punched Castiel through a window. “God’s way is the only way,” he said lowly. He looked at his henchangels and commanded, “Finish them,” before teleporting out of the room.

Cas was just going to have to look after himself for a little bit, Dean thought ruefully, he was going to be a bit busy to play rescue mission. He pulled his own knife from his boot, and not for the first time regretted not carrying around the sword Anna gave him last year more frequently. He bet it’d be pretty useful right about now.

~*~*~*~*~

Emily grunted as she slammed into the wall again. Goddamnit that hurt. She wiped a trickle of blood out of her eyes irritably before emptying another clip into the tallest angel. She glanced at Reid, “How’s he doing?”

“Still unconscious,” he replied, shooting the advancing blonde angel in the head again. “How are they still going?”

“Don’t ask why, just keep shooting,” Dean commanded from across the room, blade in hand. Emily didn’t want to know how he’d managed to get his hand so cut up – or why he’d tried to spread it all over the wall. “I just need-”

A low groan interrupted Dean and she couldn’t figure out where it was coming from; Rossi had been knocked out earlier when he’d tried to talk to the two men, pushed out of the room and slammed into the hallway. She had to assume he was still breathing. Sam was still fruitlessly attacking and neither she nor Reid were injured.

A hand grasped her ankle suddenly. “Gideon,” she said softly.

“Are you ready yet?” Sam demanded, recovering from another blow to the face.

“Would be faster if I didn’t keep getting interrupted,” Dean yelled, ducking a punch. He took a moment to admire the sight of the tall angel’s fist buried deep inside the television before shooting him in the head again. His hand left a bloody circle on the wall as he sagged against it to catch his breath.

Gideon rose to his feet slowly. “What’s going on?”

Maybe it was a psychotic break, Emily thought desperately. Maybe Balthazar had done something to Gideon. Now that he was gone, they could fix it, help Gideon recover.

“We’re in New Hampshire,” Reid replied. “Do you remember?”

Gideon laughed brokenly. “And thou shalt speak unto him, and put words in his mouth,” he said between gasps of laughter. “And I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do.”

The angels as a group froze and looked at Gideon intently, who tightened his hold around the staff in response. With an almost negligent wave of the first angel’s hand, Gideon’s neck snapped.

Emily wanted to throw up. Reid caught Gideon and guided him to the floor.

No, not him – the body.

It was obvious that Gideon was dead – his head was twisted nearly 180 degrees. No way he could have survived, but she had to check.

“You think you can fight us?” the blonde angel asked meanly, interrupting her moment with Gideon and Reid. “You, against us? When we can do this, and you can do nothing?”

“Why?” Reid demanded angrily.

“Why what?”

“Why kill Gideon? Why not kill the rest of us?”

Dean was back to drawing on the walls, she noticed out of the side of her eye. He wasn’t looking too good – beaten to all hell – though she supposed none of them would be winning any beauty contests soon.

“This is what happens when you defy the will of Heaven,” the taller angel replied. “And he was lucky – we won’t be so kind as to kill the rest of you slowly.”

“How about you douchewads leave us the fuck alone,” Dean snarled, pressing a bloody hand in the center of the design he’d been working on.

The angels both disappeared.

Reid looked up from Gideon’s body. “It’s over?”

Sam looked out of the broken window, where Emily could just now see the flickering forms of Castiel and Raphael. “For you, yeah.”

He and Dean jumped out of the window to help their friend.

“Go,” Reid said, sliding down the wall and collapsing into his knees. “Go help them. I’ll stay here with Gideon and Rossi.”

She nodded gratefully and joined the brothers behind a small garden shed. “What’s the plan?”

“Sigil won’t do much good,” Dean replied, wiping his hand on his jeans. “Plan B?”

They looked blankly at each other. Emily slapped her forehead, “This is going to end with all of us charging him and hoping for the best, isn’t it?”

“It’s a plan,” Sam defended weakly.

“It’s the same plan you guys always have,” Emily snapped. “And it sucks. Let’s go.”

“Y’all are idjits,” a gruff voice said from behind them. “Leave it to the expert, ok?”

“Bobby?” Dean asked. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“What part of ‘I’m leaving now’ did you not get? We can play catch-up later, got work to do.” Bobby grabbed a canister from his bag and handed it to Dean. “Your arm still good?”

“Well what do you know,” Dean drawled. “All that time in suburbia comes in pretty useful right now.”

He looked inordinately pleased with himself.

“Just throw it.”

The canister arced perfectly and exploded over Raphael, coating him in – water? He barely spared a look at the four humans before flickering across the field towards Castiel again.

“Don’t think holy water’s going to work against an angel,” Sam said drily.

Bobby muttered something about piss-poor genetics and yelled, “Over here!”

Castiel nodded and popped over, followed immediately by Raphael. Bobby flicked a match over to the pair and smiled broadly when Raphael caught fire.

“Holy fire?” Dean asked.

Bobby looked at the Winchesters pityingly.

“Wait a minute,” Emily said, having finally realized what had been bothering her about the man who’d seen last met in Wisconsin. “Weren’t you in a wheelchair?”

Bobby ignored her question in favor of scolding Castiel for not calling for help earlier.

“It’s a long story,” Dean replied softly. “He got better, just leave it at that.”

He looked back at the ruined window of the hotel. “You ready to go back in?”

Emily felt like sobbing. Of course she wasn’t ready – she didn’t want to see Gideon’s broken body again, didn’t want to see Reid trying so desperately trying to hold himself together, didn’t want to check if Rossi was really unconscious or not. But she found herself nodding anyway.

“Let’s go.”

~*~*~*~*~

It hadn’t been easy explaining away the damage in the hotel room, Gideon’s broken neck, and the sudden disappearance of two members of their team, but they managed. Castiel had left before Spencer remembered to ask him if he knew where Balthazar had sent Hotch and Morgan.

He could only hope they were fine. Rossi had managed to escape with a slight concussion, Prentiss with bruises and a torn rotator cuff, and while his knee wasn’t happy with him, Spencer would be fine.

Unlike Gideon.

He hadn’t seen the man in a year, he’d killed eight people, he’d traded his soul in exchange for the weapon. All of those things should make him feel as if the Gideon he’d met in New Hampshire was a stranger. Someone wearing Gideon’s face, but was broken, twisted inside.

But all Spencer could think about was the soft voice of his mentor, of the man who’d convinced him to leave academia all those years ago to make a difference in the BAU. And he’d be lying to himself if he said the Gideon he met again so briefly was a stranger.

It would be easier though.

“Good luck,” Prentiss said to the Winchesters. They’d managed to stay off the local police’s radar, though Spencer wasn’t sure how much longer Detective Irving would buy the “consultants” explanation. It was a pretty thin cover to begin with. “What are you doing next?”

“There’s a case in Wisconsin Bobby mentioned before he left,” Sam explained. “Something’s cracking people open. Seems like it might be our kind of case.”

“Going to risk Wisconsin again?” Prentiss teased.

Dean grinned. “As long as I stay away from librarians, it should be fine.”

“Good luck.”

“You too. Let us know if you can’t find Hotchner and Morgan,” Dean replied. “We’ll bug Cas for you.”

“Nah, Garcia’s already on the case,” she said dismissively. “The second their phones hit the network again, she’ll find them. Where’d Castiel go anyways?”

“He’s… searching for Balthazar,” Dean replied evasively.

Spencer raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

“You mean he’s looking for the weapons.” Prentiss laughed bitterly. “Fair warning though, we find him first – he’s dead. Angel or no angel.”

“It’s trickier than you-“ Sam started, but his brother cut him off.

“Fair enough. We’ll keep you updated.”

“Real updates,” Spencer interrupted. From their put out expressions, it was fairly obvious that they’d forgotten he’d stayed behind with Prentiss. He was used to it though, and barreled on. “Not just case updates, but things like the Apocalypse or people dying.”

Emily nodded. “Promise?”

“Sure,” Dean said with a smile.

Spencer knew he was lying. From Prentiss’ expression, so did she.

Dean sighed at the twin looks of disbelief. “We’ll try,” he offered instead.

Bobby poked his head in the office. “We leaving or do you boys have a hankering for spending more time behind bars?”

“You know, humor is an almost physiological response to fear,” Spencer said to fill the suddenly awkward silence.

Dean looked at him suspiciously before breaking out in a wide grin when he recognized the quote and Prentiss barely hid a smile. Sam merely looked bored and couldn’t stop clenching and unclenching his hands. He nodded once, briskly shook their hands, and then followed Bobby out the door. Spencer couldn’t help but notice Dean still watched his brother like the man was going to disappear at any moment.

“Do you know what you’re going to do about Sam?” Prentiss asked.

Dean shrugged. “Keep an eye on him, I guess.”

“Maybe get Cas to do the soul…” she paused, clearly unhappy about the phrase he’d coined earlier, “ _whammy_?”

“Worth a shot.” He didn’t seem convinced and looked back towards the empty doorframe as if he could will Sam back to his side.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Prentiss commanded, grabbing Dean’s attention by hugging him tightly.

“Knowing our lives?” Dean lost the haunted look and grinned widely. He hugged her Prentiss back tightly. “Never.”

~*~*~*~*~

"Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!"  


\- John Irving, _A Prayer for Owen Meany_

~*~*~*~*~

 **Epilogue:**

Morgan kicked a rock irritably, the third in as many minutes, and swore when once again the rock proved to be harder than his toes. It wasn't as if Aaron didn't understand the other man's frustration - he didn't like being transported across the country by what was apparently yet another angel and wandering the desert for hours hoping to find cell service either. And Morgan wasn't the only one who had spent those hours worried out of his mind for the team.

But at this point, Morgan was just sulking. Their ride would arrive any minute. Garcia hadn't been specific who their ride would be, but she'd been adamant that it would be there within the hour, carrying water and some much needed aloe for his sunburn. He touched his raw nose and grimaced as yet another flake peeled off at the gentle pressure. Really, there were so many ways this day could have gone better.

Deciding that asking Morgan what the rock had ever done to him would only start the man ranting again, Aaron left his relatively comfortable rock and started to stretch. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small plume of dirt headed their direction. After a few minutes a black SUV crested the hill and came to sudden stop in front of them. A blond stuck her head of the driver's window. "Want a ride boys?"

"I'm not dreaming this, am I, Hotch?" Morgan's jaw dropped. “Because normally in these kinds of dreams everyone is wearing fewer clothes and there aren’t any other dudes around.”

"I don't want to know what goes on in that head of yours," JJ replied, her face screwed up in mock disgust. "Just get in before I change my mind."

The air conditioning hitting his face as he chugged the water bottle JJ threw him was heavenly. Aaron winced, poor word choice. Garcia had only gone over the basics, but he wasn't feeling very charitable towards Heaven right about now. If the hours wandering the desert in a poor approximation of Moses (and Aaron really hoped it wasn’t some kind of sick joke of the blonde angel’s) weren’t enough to make him question his previous conviction that celestial beings were inherently good, then the utter callousness with which Heaven had treated Gideon would be more than enough to change his mind.

JJ kindly waited until they reached the highway, twenty of the bumpiest minutes of his life as the SUV hurtled down poorly defined dirt roads, before interrogating them on their latest encounter with the Winchester brothers. After hearing their stuttering and slightly incoherent explanations, she only pursed her lips and asked, "So, what's our next step?"

" _Our_ next step Jayge?" Morgan asked.

"You think I'm going to let you guys try this on your own? Look what happens when I'm not there, you guys end up stranded in the middle of the desert! Next time I have to rescue you, I want more than a heads up from Garcia five minutes before I have to leave."

As Morgan loudly protested essentially being called a damsel in distress, Aaron couldn't help but smile. His family was coming back together.

 **END**

**Author's Note:**

> REFERENCES:
> 
> Title: “I’ll Lay Your Soul to Waste” is a lyric from the song “Sympathy For the Devil” by the Rolling Stones, continuing in the proud tradition of SPN and this series of using classic rock songs for titles and sound tracks. Additionally, “Sympathy For the Devil” was used as episode titles of both SPN (5.01) and CM (2.15) and the song itself was also used in CM 2.15.
> 
> “Reid took off his glasses, examined them critically and began to clean them with the edge of his shirt.” Yes, Reid is Giles, only slightly less British (however, just as prone to getting himself captured and getting head injuries).
> 
> “… failing that, maybe he can just invent a perception filter and everyone will ignore him whenever he wants.” Reid would try to invent Doctor Who technology, don’t tell me he wouldn’t.
> 
> “… calling Jenny Ushkowitz for his first booty call when he was fifteen.” Jenna Ushkowitz is the actress who plays Tina on _Glee_. I just think she’s the kind of awesome lady Dean would be dying to meet (perhaps giving rise to Dean’s later fascination with _Busty Asian Beauties_ ).
> 
> “… like he’s found the lost episodes of Doctor Who on Bluray.” Early episodes of the BBC’s show “Doctor Who” were wiped by the BBC to save money and no remaining video or film of those episodes remains. Of the 253 episodes aired in the 1960s and 1970s, 108 are missing. In my fanon, Garcia, Prentiss, and Reid are all massive Doctor Who fans (and Reid is a Doctor Who fan in cannon, so it’s not inconceivable).
> 
> Cady Stanton is indeed a twisted homage to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the leading figures in America’s early women’s rights movements. She was also a supporter of temperance, hence the OC sobering up.
> 
> The victim and families (Dan Needham, Tabitha Gravesend, John Wheelwright, Randy White, Ginger Brinker-Smith, Louis Merrill, Mary-Beth Baird, Detective Irving, Mitzy Lish, Mrs. Walker, and Hester Eastman) are all characters or tributes to characters/authors from the awesome novel “A Prayer for Owen Meany” by John Irving (which, of course, takes place in New Hampshire).
> 
> Aaron’s Rod: SPN used the “Staff of Moses” as the weapon, but I chose to use Aaron’s Rod instead. Aaron is, obviously, Moses’ brother who had a staff (or rod – which I used because it’s funnier) of his own. This rod was spoken of as having great power *and* was used by people not Aaron in the Bible, which made me think it’d be a more effective weapon.
> 
> “… he’s behind me isn’t he?” and “share a profound bond” are both jokes stolen from SPN 6.03 because they were too good not too.
> 
> “… interrupting the stranger’s rant on the brilliance of John Locke.” Balthazar is a tricky guy. He could be referring to the English philosopher John Locke, the father of Liberalism, who wrote that in the natural state all men are equal and independent and everyone has the right to defend his “life, health, liberty, or possessions” (something that strikes me as pretty important to a guy now intoxicated with the implications of free will). Or he could be referring to John Locke, the dude from Lost. Too bad Hotch interrupted his rant. Now we’ll never know.
> 
> “… moving towards Francis Willughby’s room” Francis Willughby was an English ornithologist who studied the breeding of sea birds. His work with John Ray on 1676’s Ornithologia libri tres (published two years after his death) revolutionized ornithological taxonomy by organizing species according to their physical characteristics.
> 
> “He wanted vengeance, I just gave him a weapon – he didn’t have to use it.” Yes, the parallels to the arguments against gun control in the United States were intentional in this scene.
> 
> “… angels kept popping up like daisies?” Oblique reference to _Mulan_ , horray!
> 
> “And thou shalt speak unto him, and put words in his mouth,” he said between gasps of laughter. ‘And I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do.’” Exodus 4:15-16, King James Bible. Supposedly the words of Aaron, Moses’ brother, who performed signs before his people, impressed them with a belief in the reality of the divine mission of both brothers.
> 
> “You know, humor is an almost physiological response to fear,” Kurt Vonnegut, _A Man Without a County_. Spencer is also a member of the “we love Kurt Vonnegut” club (along with Prentiss, Dean, and Morgan – who sadly is stuck in the desert and isn’t around to revel in the geekery. Sorry dude).


End file.
